Audaxium Blog

Seven days gone, another ten Greatest Hits.
This week, that week, see them All. Each and Every One So Far.

Be sure to do other things with Audaxium as well;

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Here is the Super Mega Greatest Hits list for the week of March 17, 2013:

Newsletters. In theory they sound simple enough, too often though, when it comes time to hit SEND…the content just isn’t there…
PLAN YOUR CONTENT:

Hi and hello! You’ve reached me when I’m not here and this message is intended to imply that I wish I was here to help and not away in the first place. And it’s a lie.
WHAT THAT OUT OF OFFICE MESSAGE MEANS:

NetSuite is one of the things that Audaxium does (see here, here) and because we do it already, we know what it can do…for those of you that don’t – you can take our word for it or you can read what it’s done for others.
NETSUITE ECOMM:

Maybe you’ve got what you need, maybe you need a little something. It doesn’t hurt to keep one eye on what you’re doing and one eye one what others are doing.
BE INSPIRED:

Sometimes your budget really and truly is NOTHING. Sometimes your budget is just nothing until you can prove that it’s worth something more, either way, B to C and B to B companies benefit from an ecommerce presence (see NUUN above).
10 FREE ECOMMERCE THEMES FOR WORDPRESS:

Forgetting for a moment the grander idea of increasing your prospects and leads…while this may be an effective means of padding your email lists it is not the best means of building CLIENTS…the people that keep the lights on (so to speak).
THE FUNDAMENTALS:

Calls to action…the be all end all of your campaign…but what makes a good call? Colour, size, location…
WHAT WHERE AND HOW:

Converting a prospect to a client is hard (and expensive) work…retaining them doesn’t have to be.
5 STEPS TO BEING THE BEST:

Auto-responders are a core function of marketing automation…customer interacts and they receive a response…but the content needn’t be limited to Thank You or a Hard Sell.
BUILD BETTER AUTO RESPONDERS:

AdWords, SEO, AdWords, Content, AdWords and etceteras…at least that’s what you’ve always done. EBay recently failed (arguably) using AdWords, what does that mean for your campaigns?
IS ADWORDS FOR YOU:

The second in our Series: Custom Pardot Solutions

The what:

A landing page is a single (standalone) web page where prospects are directed for specific (predetermined) content with the express intention of encouraging a specific action, response or the collection of prospect data.

Landing pages are clean, uncluttered and typically do not allow any of the additional content (aka – distractions) typically found on a traditional web page. Landing pages are used in conjunction with most online marketing, social media and SEO campaigns.

Landing Page 101 – Click the image to know it all;

The why:

Because.

Landing pages provide the prospect with (campaign) specific content, offer a clear call to action and limit (external) distractions such as tabs, links or any other opportunity for interaction outside that which is intended.

As a result of this ‘singular focus’, landing pages convert a greater percentage of visitors into prospects/customers (compared to simply redirecting to an existing corporate web page).

A well-designed landing page will quickly capture the prospect’s attention and provoke the desired action…that is to say, much success!

The how:

Limit the content (limit distractions, limit opportunity, limit anything and everything that isn’t part of ‘the plan’).

Provide a solid Value Proposition…meaning, offer your prospects something more valuable than anything they can get for ‘free’ elsewhere (be it on your website, social media, competitors). Your value proposition might be; exclusive content, tips/tricks/training, product trials, purchase discounts, etc.

Consider offering multiple (or progressive) pieces of content (Points of Engagement)…something just for visiting the page and something following completion of a short form.

Pardot has an excellent article discussing the 4 STEPS TO A PERFECT LANDING PAGE.

The sad (but avoidable) truth:

Landing pages are an effective conversion tool.
Usually.
But, only the good ones.

Your landing page is a single purpose point of conversion…there is almost no additional opportunity to interact with prospects who don’t convert…simply designing a landing page in Pardot will not ensure success.

While we don’t know your landing page specifically, chances are, your page isn’t converting – at least as well as it could do.

Perhaps the interaction wasn’t fully considered and plotted prior to launch.
Perhaps it was, but from the marketers point of view not the prospects…
Perhaps the copy and content aren’t what the prospect wants.
Perhaps the design (fit and finish) of the page isn’t consistent with the brand it represents.

Audaxium has extensive experience creating landing pages that offer excellent conversion rates.

We can review your existing pages and offering tips and tricks or we can start from scratch and create a fully customized landing page for your campaign.
Take a look at some of the landing pages we’ve done on our PORTFOLIO PAGE.

Keep up to date with all of our Pardot tips, tricks and best practices;

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Each and every week (effect and starting today) we publish a listing of Greatest Hits.
It’s a list comprised of this’ and thats’ that we’ve collected through our travels, projects and problems. Topics vary within the wide world(s) of marketing automation, ERP/CRM and generally keeping sane.

Have suggestions for the list?
Don’t wait until next weeks compendium hits, keep in touch and share those thoughts with us:

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Our list for the week of February 15, 2013:

You worked hard and you’ve earned your audiences trust, don’t blow it.
READ MORE:

The Great Sales and Marketing Divide, what is it and how do you bridge it?
READ MORE:

When should you send your email campaign? Maybe it’s not when ‘they’ say it is.
READ MORE:

Nobody we know actually has these clients but reading these gems might make you appreciate the ones you do have a little more.
READ MORE:

New to drip campaigns? Not seeing the results you expected? A quick review of the basics can’t hurt.
READ MORE:

Your (email) marketing campaign is up and you are seeing activity…but is actually helping or hurting?
READ MORE:

The (self described) ULTIMATE list of email statistics for the year gone by…open rates, click rates and other notable behaviours to tweak and enhance the success of your campaigns.
READ MORE:

It’s a mobile world these days…you are designing your emails and landing pages for mobile…aren’t you?
READ MORE:

Reading Clients From Hell aside, here are five simple techniques to help you stay on task.
READ MORE:

I have long touted the benefits of WordPress (or any CMS for that matter) as ‘Not Just a Plain Olde Blog’…here are 25 excellent examples of websites created in WordPress.
READ MORE:

The first in our Series: Custom Pardot Solutions

The what:

A drip campaign is a marketing strategy that sends pre-composed content to pre-defined prospects over a pre-determined period of time.

The content of the campaign is essentially ‘dripped’ to each of the prospects based on the specific behavior and/or status of that particular prospect…and that’s a good thing, else, they’d have to call it something different.

Perhaps, a picture – Click it to see full size and be in awe;

The why:

A well designed drip program will nurture, engage, assign and convert prospects (based on their specific interactions with the communications in the campaign) automatically.

On one hand, this automation is intended to free up sales resources, leaving them to pursue more sales ready opportunities.
On the other, it ensures that you aren’t neglecting those other prospects (potential or otherwise).

The how:

In order to be effective, drip campaigns require a great deal of preparation and forethought prior to implementation.
Each email touch, landing page and automation rule must be considered, created and scheduled in advance of the launch.

Here are some tips from Pardot on GETTING STARTED.

The sad (but avoidable) truth:

Good drip campaigns can be an effective automation tool.
Excellent drip campaigns can be extremely powerful.

That said (good, bad or meh), drip campaigns require a great deal of forethought, strategy and planning.
In many cases, Pardot users find themselves avoiding drip campaigns, either because they lack the time, the confidence or the expertise required to make ‘best use’.

Audaxium has extensive experience creating custom drip and we can assist you with the creation and implementation of yours.
Take a look at some of the drip campaigns we’ve done on our PORTFOLIO PAGE.

Keep up to date with our tips, tricks and best practices;

Like Us on Facebook

Follow Us on Twitter

Connect with Us on LinkedIn

Subscribe to the Blog

With the start of a new year you’ve likely made resolutions and established some goals for yourself. If you’re a Pardot user, I’m sure you have objectives to improve the way you use Pardot and to take better advantage of the advanced Marketing Automation capabilities available to you.

Inspiration for Your Objectives

You may have already finalized your list of 2013 objectives for Pardot, but if you’ve been procrastinating or looking for ideas for inspiration, what follows is an example list of projects that we’re working on with our Pardot customers…

• Drip Programs
  • Automated Sales Follow-Up – Setup Pardot to do the work for your Sales team in “Touching Base” occasionally
  • Database Re-Heat – All those dis-engaged cold Leads/Prospects?  Go after them and get them re-engaged!
  • Customer On-boarding – Set expectations, educate new customers, and secure their annual renewal automatically.
• Content Landing Pages – Most everyone can manage their Pardot Content a bit better in order to convert more leads.
• Better Email Preference Center – Many Pardot users don’t start by using this page well. Did you know you can have multiple preference centers for different purposes?
• Evaluate and Rebuild Scoring Criteria – Reviewing your scoring rules, and your database statistics is a useful yearly task.
• Implement Dynamic Content – This is a new Pardot feature that few people use yet. Dynamic content on landing pages lets you focus your message at your prospect.
• Content Re-Purposing – You’ve got good, but older content.  Make sure people know about it.
• Advanced Reporting – Need better reporting in NetSuite?  There’s an app for that.
• Responsive HTML5 – More and more people are reading their emails and converting on landing pages via mobile. We’re helping customers convert their marketing campaigns to HTML5 responsive templates so that they display properly, enhance the reader’s mobile experience, and convert more leads.

These are just a few examples.  Let us know if you want some assistance getting the job done.  Our job is to make you look like a hero.

Why is this Important?

Pardot provides great Opportunity reporting tools so that you can review the ROI performance of your various digital marketing campaigns.  However, currently the NetSuite/Pardot connector doesn’t integrate Opportunities.  At this time, the only way to get Opportunities (both Open and Closed) into Pardot for analysis is to import them.

Ouch, that sounds Painful!

Yes, at first blush, the idea of manually importing data every month sounds painful and time-consuming…  but it doesn’t have to be.  We've written a set of instructions for the best practices around importing NetSuite opportunities into Pardot.  These best practices are aimed at “semi-automating” the process so that it is relatively painless.

Send me the Best Practices PDF via email please.

What You Will Learn:

• Capturing all relevant Opportunities via a Saved Search in NetSuite
• Tailoring the Saved Search to optimize the import process into Pardot
• Receiving the list of Opportunities to your email inbox on a scheduled basis (Monthly, Weekly…)

Questions?

If you have a technical question about this process, feel free to ASK IT HERE.  We'll respond ASAP.

This is Part 1 of a new 2-Part blog series entitled: “Sales & Marketing Alignment and the Role of Marketing Automation”

• Part 1: Sales & Marketing Alignment – What Is It, and Why Should I Care?
• Part 2: How Does Marketing Automation Help Achieve Sales & Marketing Alignment?

Part 1: Sales and Marketing Alignment – What Is It, and Why Should I Care?

If you're in B2B Marketing, have you ever thought to yourself, “Why doesn't Sales follow up on all the leads we're generating for them?”… chances are good.

On the flip-side, if you're in B2B Sales, have you ever thought to yourself, “Why are these leads Marketing is sending me so crappy? Most of them won't return my calls.”… chances are good.

This is what I call, “The Great Sales and Marketing Divide.”  I would bet you my next qualified lead that there isn't a single B2B company in the world that doesn't suffer from the same disconnect between Marketing and Sales. Maybe it's not the case ALL of the time, but there are certainly times of the year when stress levels are high and targets/quotas are looming large that the two teams complain about each other.

Conflicting Perspectives

It's actually quite natural for Marketing and Sales teams to have conflicting priorities and perspectives on lead generation. Sales is responsible for closing deals. To do that, they need qualified leads who are ready to look for a solution. From a salesperson's perspective, the best leads are those who already understand the cost of their problems, understand the value of the solution being proposed, and have buying power in an organization.

Marketing is responsible for many things, not the least of which is lead generation.  However, Marketers tend to have a longer term view on the challenge of lead generation. Marketers do indeed generate leads that are qualified and ready to buy, but a much larger percentage of the leads they generate are with prospects who are very early in their buying/research process and are not ready to talk with a salesperson. Marketing understands that demand generation requires a lot of effort to nurture and educate prospects over the course of months, or even years.

Ideal Client Profile

Every Marketing book on the shelf talks about how important it is for a company to identify its ideal client profile(s). They are the companies who are most likely to buy your product or service because it is the ideal fit in terms of functionality, solution, and price. Leads that fit the ideal client profile are obviously some of the best leads for Sales to pursue.

Some Marketing and Sales teams have come to an agreement on their ideal client profile. However, many companies have not done enough research and homework to even start this process.  Still other companies who have done their homework haven't had the internal meetings between Marketing and Sales to come to an agreement on this. They're simply throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks.

What is a Qualified Lead, and Who's Responsible?

There are as many definitions of the phrase “qualified lead” as there are stars in the sky. In many companies, what Marketing believes is a qualified lead is not the same as what Sales believes is a qualified lead. It's common to hear disagreement on the definition.

Also, who's responsible for generating qualified leads? Is it solely on the backs of Marketers, or should Salespeople also be responsible for generating qualified leads through their own prospecting efforts such as: cold calling, targeted direct emails, in-person networking, and being active on social media networks? I have my own opinion on that, but what really matters is for your Marketing and Sales teams to come to a clear agreement on the % of total qualified leads that each is responsible for generating.

buy cheap cigarettesxt-align: justify;”>Most importantly, they both need to completely buy in to that agreement, or there will always be a disconnect which can lead to a lack of credibility, respect, and trust.

Read More »

Audaxium is proud to be a sponsor of the Pardot Elevate 2011 User Conference (Nov. 15-16, 2011) http://bit.ly/uqbXQn

Here are the Top 5 Reasons to Visit us at our booth:

1) You’re a new Pardot customer, and you could use some help

Pardot is the easiest to learn Marketing Automation system available today. However, there are often multiple ways to accomplish the same objective in the system. It’s great to have powerful software, but it’s even more important to use it in the most effective manner possible to generate quality sales-ready leads.

Audaxium QuickStart implementations help shorten your learning curve, launch your first campaigns quickly, and get you up to speed on best practices and latest trends in the Marketing Automation community.

2) You’ve been using Pardot for a while, but you’re busy

Most Marketing teams have long lists of ideas for campaigns they would like to run, but they don’t have the resources to get everything done. A typical Marketer’s “to-do” list keeps growing rather than shrinking as tasks get completed.

If you feel that you haven’t gotten enough strategic work done in Pardot or aren’t taking full advantage of the capabilities, why not bring Audaxium in to help? We offer development of drip programs, email campaigns, landing pages, and content marketing strategies.

3) You’re a NetSuite customer and you wish the integration with Pardot worked better

Pardot provides, at no charge, an out-of-the-box connector for NetSuite CRM. It automatically syncs data between the two systems and provides basic reporting capabilities. However, NetSuite has some unique ways that it manages data, so there are steps you need to take to increase the amount and type of data that syncs.

Audaxium can help you configure and optimize this integration in order to segment your lists of customers and prospects in Pardot more effectively, and to deliver to your dashboard better campaign ROI reports.

4) You’re a NetSuite customer and you wish NetSuite were easier to use

NetSuite is in fact a leading system for not only ERP, but also CRM and eCommerce. However, some Marketing and Sales teams are not in love with the capabilities or the ease of use of NetSuite.

This is NOT because NetSuite isn’t a capable CRM tool, but rather because many NetSuite implementations are focused on the requirements of the Finance or Operations team, with little focus on Sales & Marketing.

When NetSuite is configured properly for Sales & Marketing, your team becomes much more productive.

5) You like craft beer or good wine

We really like craft beer and good wine, and we’re always looking for an excuse to buy new friends a drink at the bar at the end of the day. Drop by our booth to say hello, have a chat about Pardot marketing automation, then let’s meet up at the bar to celebrate great software!

READ MORE: http://bit.ly/u0bf2b 

Lead Source: Marketing’s most coveted, and most loathed, data field in a CRM system.

The Importance of Measuring ROMI

It’s stating the obvious to say that B2B marketing teams are being held accountable for a direct relationship between marketing spend and revenue generation. With limited budgets and resources, measuring ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment) is critical for determining the best marketing channels to generate quality sales leads that convert to revenue.

Since there’s no “silver bullet” for reaching everyone in a target market, marketers are using multi-channel marketing approaches to build their brands and generate sales leads. SEO, PPC, webinars, whitepapers, eBooks, video, tradeshows, print ads, direct mail, social media… you name it. The question is: How best to divide up your limited marketing budget and overworked resources among all these channels?

The Challenge in Measuring ROMI

The challenge is that rarely will a prospect buy from you because of a single marketing touch, such as a webinar. How did they end up registering for your webinar? Perhaps by clicking on your PPC ad after searching online for something you sell. Then, maybe they read a few pages of a whitepaper you paid a copywriter to write, or watched a short online video you hired a production company to develop. They may even have picked up one of your fancy pens at your tradeshow booth in the past. Read More »

This webinar took place on June 22, 2011 => Click here to view the presentation

Questions to ask yourself:

• Have you outgrown NetSuite’s email marketing capabilities?
• Are you tired of low open and clickthrough rates on your email campaigns?
• Still sending generic marketing emails to large lists?
• Need to deliver a higher % of sales-ready leads to your Sales team?
• Don’t have time to deliver the 10+ email touches required to nurture potential leads?

The #1 Challenge in B2B Marketing

Studies have shown that 80% of inbound leads through your website are not ready for a conversation with a salesperson.  Often, when a person fills out a form on your website to learn more about your solutions or your industry, they’re simply doing preliminary research on an issue and it’s not high enough on their priority list to spend time on the phone with you.

The problem is that today’s marketers are charged with doing more with less.  Most marketers just don’t have the time or resources to manually send multiple targeted emails to a lead until they are sales ready.  It often takes months, or even years, to nurture an early-stage lead until they are ready to “shop”.

Marketing Automation Can Help

That’s where Marketing Automation and Lead Nurturing come in.  Pardot is a cloud-based Marketing Automation add-on for NetSuite that provides website and email marketing automation.  Leads are scored, graded, and nurtured until they are deemed sales-ready, and shows your sales team exactly where to spend its time.  That way, they can focus on the leads that are the best fit and the most interested in finding a solution to a problem.

Why Attend the Webinar?

Learn automation best practices, including:

• Send more targeted messages with automatic segmentation of your leads by persona
• Increase lead conversion rates with progressive profiling on web forms
• Automate multi-touch lead nurturing and knowledge marketing campaigns

Pardot is a fully integrated add-on for NetSuite

As a certified SuiteApp partner, Pardot integrates tightly with NetSuite at no extra charge.

• View all prospect activity right from within the CRM system (useful for Salespeople)
• Bi-directionally sync Contacts, Companies, and Custom Fields to keep data current
• Track Opportunity statuses and values for closed loop ROI reporting

View the webinar presentation to learn how Marketing Automation with Pardot can help you deliver a higher percentage of sales-ready leads to your Sales team.