When following up with prospects, let's be careful out there.
Sometimes we marketing and sales folk seem to have a death wish when it comes to new technologies.
Not a death wish for ourselves.
A death wish for the technologies — and the possibilities for audience outreach and value-add, win-win each might enable.
Case in point:
Last week I clicked through to the website of a leading marketing automation company. I’d just read a third party’s blog which quoted one of the company’s execs. A new piece of content, an infographic, was mentioned. Curious, I clicked, poked around a bit, then downloaded said infographic.
Mind you, I’m NOT a qualified prospect for the company’s software as a service. To describe me as a potential influencer might even be stretching it. As a business developer and marketing strategist working for a content marketing firm, at best I might someday be on an account team that might someday be in a position to someday recommend this SaaS to a client. Even then, that solution would likely originate with, and be vetted by, one of my more technology-savvy colleagues.
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Still I was not very surprised, but did find myself a little irked, when my brief web visit triggered an e-mail from a sales rep. I’d visited the company’s site once previously and downloaded an ebook. Clearly that earlier ”engagement” had earned me a cookie, plus status as a “lead” to be tracked and scored within the company’s lead management system.
But this particular example of sales follow-up triggered by a website visit left me wondering: Haven’t we been down this road before?
Haven’t marketing and sales types taken a marvelous new technology (e.g., e-mail, fax) for reaching out and engaging directly with audiences, and done our level best to turn that potential into something often intrusive, ham-handed and annoying?
I’m pretty sure this particular e-mail was Exhibit A for how NOT to do lead nurturing based on web visitor tracking. A few of the do’s and don’ts that jumped out:
DON’T make ”Prospect on Website” the subject line of your e-mail. That’s right. This sales rep received an e-mail alert from his company’s marketing automation system, then simply forwarded that e-mail to me, adding a three-sentence message of his own. Although I did open his e-mail, “Prospect on Website” is not exactly an inviting subject line. In fact, it sounded ominously like a security system loudspeaker warning “Intruder on Premises!”
DON’T show the prospect your lead intelligence underwear. Because the web tracking alert e-mail was forwarded, I could see the lead scorecard the company is building on me. How many times I’ve visited their site. Pages viewed. Downloads. Date of last visit. Even a paragraph of directions for sales reps: “Your personal notification of activity on your website. Target prospects, identify visitors, and develop sales relationships with your online visitors.” Felt a bit like reading Big Brother’s dossier on me. Kind of creepy.
DO take a few minutes to customize follow-up. If this company were really interested in developing relationships, they might look to customize this type of e-mail. For example, they could require that reps research web visitors on LinkedIn prior to sending follow-up e-mails. If that were standard operating procedure, the rep would have discovered I work for a marketing firm.
Based on that, the e-mail might have had as its subject line: “How agencies win new business with marketing automation.” And the message might have read: “Would you be interested in talking a bit about how agencies likes yours can be heroes, and be more profitable, by recommending marketing automation to your clients?” Instead, the generic e-mail sent to me read: “I received a notification that you have returned to our website. Is there anything I can help you with? Let me know if you’re free to chat for a few minutes at some point today?
DO offer value beyond the opportunity to talk about your product. To simplify, let’s say there are two primary buyer personas for marketing automation. Corporate marketers who buy. Marketing consultants who recommend. Would it make sense to develop some relevant lead nurturing content for each persona? Based on a solid content strategy, the follow-up e-mail might have offered me a report on how other marketing firms have grown business with Fortune 1000 clients by implementing and managing their clients’ marketing automation systems.
DO try to recognize when it’s best to hold your fire. If this sales rep were really ambitious, he might have clicked from my LinkedIn profile to this blog. He might even have spotted a post in which I express irritation toward over-eager retail clerks who assault shoppers with “what can we help you with today?” before we’ve stepped both feet in the door. Granted, it would have taken some shoe leather to glean that insight. But it would have been a valuable clue to not send a standard follow-up to this particular web visitor.
Because We Can Doesn’t Mean We Should
If “do not track” sentiment and regulation gains momentum in this country, and if e-mail spam laws and penalties expand to include this sort of web tracking-prompted e-mail, marketers and sales execs will have only themselves to blame.
The ability to track visitors’ on your website, then respond via e-mail or phone, is now a given. Whether we do it carelessly or thoughtfully will determine whether this particular technological advance proves a relationship builder or an engagement barrier.
If your organization alerts sales reps to contact web visitors while they’re still on site, or shortly after, think through how best to leverage that communication moment. Start by making sure you have a relevant content strategy that extends to this particular touch point.
“People,” as Sgt. Phil Esterhaus used to caution fellow police officers during roll call on TV’s Hill Street Blues: “Let’s be careful out there?”
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What do you think? Am I a luddite on this website visitor follow-up issue? Does your organization alert sales to the presence of web visitors? Any thoughts on best practices for effective follow-up? Would welcome your comments and discussion.
Wow – agree that this example is pretty egregious … and that as soon as you take the ‘humanity’ out of any process you are in danger of doing just this. All the ‘lead intel’ in the world is useless if it doesn’t get used intelligently:)
In addition to training folks on how to use automation … one lesson I try to share with our customers is that the ‘set it & forget it’ approach is just as bad too. Creating automation that shares content of value and encourages follow up is great … but what’s current, relevant and interesting changes over time, by demographic and more. Marketers should be regularly revising, testing and tweaking any automation they start. Newer tools that let marketers get close to 1:1 communication will make this even more compelling (if used smartly:)))).
Looking forward to Vince’s suggestions as well:)
Thanks, Jessica and Kirsten, for chiming in here. Kirsten, I like your point about “taking the humanity out’ being a danger sign. Whether it’s customer service, marketing, ecommerce, if our goal is to have real, meaningful, win-win engagement with customers and potential customres, we should always be wary when anyone or anything promises to “automate” the process for us. Sat through Mike Volpe’s “Death of Marketing Automation” webinar today, by the way. Good stuff, and very consistent with what we’re talking about here. Thanks, too, for including a link to this post on HubSpot.com
Great post Vince! Being familiar with many MA systems, I see how this stuff can happen. Many times sales teams just aren’t properly trained on how and when to follow-up with inbound leads. Sales techniques are so different from 10 years ago, including the information we now have about our prospects. And you’re definitely right about the “set it and for got” mentality. It’s not a bad thing to automate certain processes, but I see time and time again (especially in my inbox from all the spam!) of MA software being used ineffectively.
There’s a good post about that here: 3 Ways to Make Inbound Leads More Effective for Sales and Marketing: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/24421/3-Ways-to-Make-Inbound-Leads-More-Effective-for-Sales-and-Marketing.aspx
Thanks for the post.
Vince,
I just wiped the sweat off my forehead. I checked in our Salesforce.com CRM system to see if it was Eloqua who offended you with the generic email message with the oh so clever subject line “Prospect on Website.” We have the same capabilities as you describe above, but we have a different approach to following up with our “future advocates” that includes checking the profile in LinkedIn and spending time on the visitor’s website, blog, and/or Twitter feed.
I see you requested a smoking gun statistic or two on how big a priority (maybe the top priority?) lead generation and management is for today’s corporate marketers. According to The Conference Board CEO Challenge 2011, fueling business growth tops CEOs agendas around the world. Lead generation and management impacts revenue growth. Any increase in conversion rate from Suspect, to Prospect, to Opportunity, to Closed Won business has a positive impact on revenue growth. The analysts who have published reports on this include Forrester, SiriusDecisions, IDC, Gartner, and ITSMA.
Happy to share more if you’re interested.
Jill Rowley
Eloqua
jill.rowley@eloqua.com
Thanks, Jill. The follow-up approach you’re describing sounds like a solid one. One can imagine a sales rep — maybe a little short on quote — sometimes wanting to short-circuit that protocol and jump right to the, “Hey, I see you visited our website” e-mail. Do you have any way (technologically) of tracking that reps follow the protocol consistently, or is it pretty much an honor system thing?.
Yep Vince, the title is a bit over the top, but I know exactly where you’re coming from. My company uses a marketing automation platform to great benefit. But the greatest misnomer is in that word “automation.” I think so many companies that use the technology think they can just turn it on and forget about it. That’s not only untrue, it’s dangerous to their lead generation program. I use the lead intelligence data to best determine when a lead is ready for their initial sales outreach. Yes, I do it manually and I’ll likely not reverse course any time soon for many of the reasons you mentioned.
Until marketing automation software becomes “smart” and maybe throws in some AI, we marketers must continue to actually think about what we do and how we interact with prospects.
Thanks, Chris. It would be interesting to hear how you read the digital tea leaves to decide (divine?) when a lead is ready for that initial outreach. Have you blogged about that? If not, it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the topic.
I haven’t blogged about it and I really should. I’m seeing more and more examples of it done badly. Heck, it could be me doing something badly, too. With anything that is “automated” there are plenty of places to go wrong if we’re not careful.
Let me start to put some thoughts together on your question and hopefully we can sort through some of these issues together.
Just what you needed, right? Another to-do. ; )
Wow, literally had to cover my eyes when I saw that subject line. At the end of the day, I think it just comes down to old fashioned laziness. The technology is neutral…it can be used for good or for bad.
Last week I got a follow up prospecting call after attending a local small business expo (mostly for accountants, but I was curious and it was free). They had all of my info from registration, including my site, profession, etc. A 10 second look-see would have shown that I am not, in fact, an accountant.
So, armed with all that great intel, what did these brilliant marketers come up with?
“Hi, my name is _____ from ______. We create blah blah blah to help accountants blah blah blah. Do you have a few minutes to answer some questions about blah blah blah?”
Priceless…although your email example wins the prize. You can’t make this stuff up.
Sorry, Marcus, didn’t mean to scare you with the headline. Perhaps a little on the hyperbolic side, but I’m glad it got you to read and comment. Absolutely agree that the technology is not the problem so much as how we use it. And at least checking out a contact’s website and LinkedIn profile before making a follow-up call or e-mail does not seem like too much to ask.
Yup, the title was scary too, but what really scared me was ”Prospect on Website” as the email’s subject line. Now that’s frightening!