B2B Marketing Promotion!

The article shares practical experience and thoughts on lead life cycle management from the perspectives of management background, management value and closed-loop construction practice throughout the lead life cycle.

This time I will share mainly from the following three aspects:

1. Background and value of lead life cycle management

1. Background of lead lifecycle management - the fragility of communication

John Wanamaker, the father of the department store industry, once said a hundred years ago: I know that half of the money spent on advertising is wasted, but I don't know which half.

We can make a calculation through the "information processing model of communication":

Any form of communication must go through the following six steps:

1) Demonstration: He must see or hear the communication;

2) Attention: He must notice the spread;

3) Understanding: He must understand the message or intention of the communication;

4) Reaction: He must respond positively to the information disseminated;

5) Intention: He must intend to act on the information communicated;

6) Action: He must actually take action;

The difficulty in developing a successful marketing and customer acquisition communication plan lies in the fact that each of the six steps needs to be present. If there is a problem in any link, the communication will not be successful. We can use numbers to prove how fragile the entire transmission process is:

Assuming that the success probability of each of the six steps is 10%, and assuming that the six events are independent of each other, then according to the principle of probability, the probability of all six steps being successful is: 0.1×0.1×0.1×0.1×0.1×0.1=0.000001. In other words, there is only one time in 1 million advertising placements. No wonder John Wanamaker, the father of the department store industry, lamented, "I know that half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, but the problem is I don't know which half."

For a hundred years, for us marketing practitioners, optimizing the conversion rate at each stage of marketing and increasing the number of signed customers has been a pain that we have always wanted to overcome.

2. Challenges and pain points faced by Marketing

The challenges and pain points faced by To B Marketing mainly include the following:

• The cost of signing orders and acquiring customers remains high;
• The ROI is low/difficult to quantify, and the boss cannot see the market value;
• Low quality of leads: low conversion rate from leads to orders;

According to the "Information Processing Model of Communication", we can use the data model to calculate an account to prove the challenges mentioned above:

Click -> Leads -> MQL -> SQL -> Opp·SQL -> POC -> Sign the order. Assuming the success probability of each step is 0.1, the probability of signing the order is: 0.1×0.1×0.1×0.1×0.1×0.1×0.1×0.1=0.0000001.

In other words, 100,000,000 impressions result in 1 customer being sold. Assuming one impression is 0.5 cents, the cost of acquiring one customer is 50,000. (Of course, the data probability of each step is virtual, and the actual success probability of each step can be calculated according to your own company. Here I just want to show that: from display to order, after going through untold hardships, the effect is dismal)

From this lead conversion funnel we can ask two questions:

1. How to optimize the lead funnel conversion rate and reduce lead costs?
2. Based on what conditions can we ensure the entire process from tracking leads to closing orders?

3. The root cause of the challenges faced by Marketing: Opportunity-oriented

The early TO B Marketing market was more responsible for the process from lead acquisition to business opportunities, and did not participate in the tracking process after sales took over. What will happen with this market positioning logic? Since marketing and sales have different KPIs, they focus on different interests. The main task of sales is to close orders, provided that the market provides high-quality business opportunities, while the market is concerned with whether the business opportunities are followed up and converted, which leads to a lack of understanding and coordination.

Let’s do some calculations for the marketing budget:

The marketing team that supports enterprises with revenue of more than 150 million yuan is generally composed of 10 people or more:

We calculate based on marketing expenses (including manpower), assuming that it accounts for 15% of revenue, 150 million*0.15=22.5 million;

For the boss, what he cares most about is: after spending so much money in a year, how much revenue will it bring in in the end? What is the ROI? How much do leads cost? How to reduce customer acquisition costs? Improve conversion rate and labor efficiency?

In marketing that is opportunity-oriented, it is difficult to accurately track the data behind business opportunities due to various factors such as the lack of institutional guarantees, and it is impossible to optimize the conversion rate at each stage.

4. Solutions to market, sales and organizational coordination: Marketing is revenue-oriented and closely coordinated

The purpose of building the Rev. Marketing team - aligning goals with the boss: Accumulating a large and growing number of users efficiently and at low cost is the top priority of Marketing.

The institutional logic behind the revenue-oriented approach is that marketing and sales have a common North Star indicator: revenue. With a common and unique key indicator, marketing and sales will become two closely coordinated departments due to their consistent interests.

The Rev.Marketing team needs to serve the entire sales process from MQL to order signing, gaining high-quality Leads through open source with the left hand and saving money with the right hand:

Open source: attract a lot of attention, and use channels such as activities (online/offline), SEM, SEO, BD, content marketing, etc. to expose the audience, and do a good job in the promotion, customer acquisition, and traffic generation stages;

Cost saving: Promote conversion, convert users into orders and carry out refined operations, ensure that the process of each lead is known, trackable, traceable and optimizable, and improve the quality and quantity of customer acquisition channels.

When managing the lead life cycle, the following three points must be ensured:

Unified semantics: Leads=CRM lead pool -> MQL=CRM sales lead -> SQL= CRM customer -> OPP= CRM business opportunity;

Data analysis tools: user behavior analysis tools, BI reports;

Do a good job of data integration: connect UBA (User behavior analysis tool) + off-site (SEM/SEO) + official website + CRM system data.

In the revenue-oriented marketing process, the goal for the market is to improve the quality of leads, lead tracking and conversion rate optimization, order conversion cycle, cost reduction and efficiency improvement, and truly be consistent with the boss's market positioning goals. The market focuses on how to assist sales in closing deals with customers, while seeking support from the boss to better collaborate with sales, track a customer's status to the end, track the entire lead life cycle, optimize deficiencies, and do a good job of assisting sales in closing deals.

5. The value of lead lifecycle management - the power behind numbers

(1) Value 1: Reduce costs and improve labor efficiency

Click -> Leads -> MQL -> SQL -> Business Opportunities·Opp -> POC -> Sign Order. Assuming that the success probability of each step after optimization is 0.2, the probability of closing an order is: 0.2×0.2×0.2×0.2×0.2×0.2×0.2=0.00000256.

In other words, 100,000,000 times of display, 25.6 customers were closed, assuming the display fee is still 0.5 cents, the cost of acquiring a customer is 50000/25.6=1953.125.

By optimizing the conversion rate of each stage from leads to signing deals, with the marketing budget unchanged and in the same cycle, the number of customers acquired is 25.6 times that before the optimization, and the cost of signing deals is 3.9% of that before the optimization, greatly increasing labor efficiency.

(2) Value 2: Only by considering the overall situation can we better plan for a specific area

By tracking the lead life cycle, we can gradually understand the market at different stages, build a Marketing canvas, locate the audience, and reflect the market value points in the organization.

1) Three stages of market development

Regarding the development of the B2B enterprise market, I divide it into the following three development stages. In these three development stages, the market capability requirements are different.

It is worth noting that in the stage from 0 to 1, the company focused more on MVP product creation and PMF evolution in the first two years. Once you enter the PMF stage, market involvement comes into play - identifying the target market.

Marketing needs to take action on one or more of the following four key target segments as part of its customer acquisition and brand revitalization strategy:

• Retain customers who are prone to churn;
• Regain lost customers;
• Identify neglected market segments;
• Attract new customers;

In the PMF stage, in order to reverse the company's product sales, some companies will first focus on the fourth market and chase new customers, which is the most dangerous choice. If it fails, there will be two possible results: failure to attract new customers; or more seriously, loss of existing customers. Therefore, at this stage, it is important for marketers to cooperate with sales to promote the establishment of customer stickiness and retain existing customers, as well as find customers that match the current product stage.

2) Build a Marketing Canvas

At this stage, the marketing team can gradually sort out the marketing canvas of the current stage by following up the entire life cycle of the leads. Taking the DataPipeline marketing canvas as an example, it mainly involves the following six aspects:

By combing through the marketing canvas, we can clearly identify user types and portraits. During the PMF period, in addition to finding reliable leads, the market must also use strong BD capabilities to find upstream and downstream manufacturers to obtain relevant value information and find relevant decision makers to assist in converting sales opportunities.

3) User classification

By clearly combing through the marketing canvas, we gradually have a clear understanding of: which specific business pain point of which group of people in which sub-industry is solved by the product. It effectively ensures that Marketing can accurately position itself in the market during its development at different stages, and provide high-quality leads based on product status and sales needs. Through corresponding Marketing actions, it cooperates with sales at different stages to assist sales and achieve the goal of signing orders.

2. Closed-loop practice of lead life cycle

1. Strategic thinking

(1) Institutional:

1) Coordination mechanism between marketing, sales and other departments

Common KPI indicators for marketing and sales: revenue;

Other aspects including organizational construction, corporate culture, vision, etc. mainly rely on the boss. The market cooperates with the boss and human resources administration to promote corporate culture.

2) Solidify the coordination process between marketing and sales;

• Sales tools: sales manual, CRM and CRM operating specifications;
• Process management: lead lifecycle management, tracking a customer status to completion;

(2) Process optimization and consolidation:

• Improve ROI: Clicks—>Leads—>MQL—>SQL—>Opportunities·Opp—>POC—>Signing orders, refined operations at every step;
• Reduce the cost of acquiring successful customers;
• Optimized to a single cycle;
• Focus on customers and clearly understand the ins and outs and processes of customers;

2. Tactical Execution

(1) Necessary and sufficient conditions to support conversion rate optimization at each stage: efficient organizational coordination

1) The same goal, the same effort

A clue can lead to a successful contract signing and delivery, which is supported by the joint efforts of R&D, sales, marketing and all colleagues of B2B enterprises. Without the strong backing of stable, easy-to-use valuable products and services, the protection of successful customer reputation; without the guidance of corporate culture; without the strong support and cooperation of various departments such as R&D, sales, pre-sales, marketing, operation and maintenance, finance, human resources and administration, it will be difficult for the B2B enterprise market to achieve anything and it will not be sustainable; in the end, it must return to product value, the ability to serve customers, and the corporate culture and organizational system; product value and corporate culture are the "inside" and the market is the "outside"; without the support of the "inside", the "outside" is only temporarily beautiful; without the wrapping of the splendid "outside", no matter how good the "inside" is, it will be hidden in the boudoir and unknown to anyone.

2) Marketing and sales cooperation:

Normal relationship between marketing and sales/other people in the organization: high demands are placed on each other to complete all executive actions that are in the best interest of the enterprise.

Only under this consensus, Marketing will consider the overall organizational development and the current situation of the enterprise, and establish a full lead life cycle management from Leads to signing orders, to ensure the maximization of lead value, and then to maximize corporate interests, and to truly achieve comfortable and close collaboration with sales.

a.Marketing & Sales Cooperation: Lead Process Management—From Leads to Business Opportunities

b. Sales & Pre-sales Cooperation: Business Opportunity Process Management—From Business Opportunity to POC

c. After-sales service process

(2) Make good use of CRM: customer-centric and improve service efficiency

1) CRM lead flow process

Currently, we strive to maximize our customer-centricity, track the sources and destinations of customers, and manage process status. Marketing, sales, pre-sales, and after-sales are based on CRM to collaboratively improve customer information. This allows us to keep information flowing smoothly; secondly, it allows the company and the market to analyze the current stage of the customer from a global perspective, make customer order placement decisions, and make marketing improvements.

2) Standardize CRM filling: do a good job of data accumulation and management

Specifications of required fields for sales leads, customers, and opportunities in CRM for better report analysis. Currently, our CRM fields include the following core fields, including the conversion time of each stage of Leads—>MQL—>SQL—>Opportunities·Opp—>POC—>Signing, as well as core fields such as source, region, industry, and keywords.

And in the actual analysis process, valuable fields are gradually designed and then solidified into the CRM process to better analyze relevant data. The following figure shows these fields. We can analyze the following visual reports:

Total revenue;

Revenue share of each channel: the share of each channel such as market, self-developed sales, and senior management;

The regional and industry distribution of winning orders;

POC geographical distribution, POC industry distribution, POC failure cause analysis, POC average turnover cycle;

Average order turnover cycle;

The feedback from sales after each follow-up stage is filled in the CRM. The content is the core points of each communication between sales and customers, including business situation, project trigger points, project cycle, project risk points, competitive product situation, project progress, and business situation. The completeness of the information filled in shows the sales’ understanding of the customer and the quality of the customer, etc., so as to better measure the value of market leads, assist the market in absorbing valuable information for marketing, and analyze the points to be optimized at each stage, so as to provide feedback for customer acquisition.

(3) Make good use of data analysis tools and analysis: marketing full funnel analysis

1) Make good use of user behavior analysis tools:

a. The source of leads can be traced

For online marketing channels, connect UBA (User behavior analysis tool) + off-site SEM/SEO + official website + CRM data. After entering CRM, track a customer's status to the end.

For online off-site/on-site marketing channels, the iResearch Ark + off-site SEM/SEO + website + CRM data are connected, and UTM parameters are added to all URLs that lead to the official website for trial applications through online channels such as content marketing, SEM, SEO, etc., so that the channel source and keywords can be known, and the user browsing behavior can be analyzed. In addition, the customer information of registered trial applications directed from off-site to the official website can be connected to the CRM through the API, thereby realizing the automatic generation of CRM leads.

In the following picture, we can confirm the relevant information from the red box: Nanjing xxx company searched Baidu promotion through Baidu search engine under "Plan Name = Function-Metadata Management, Unit Name = G-Metadata Management, Keyword = Metadata Management".

By tracking and analyzing the conversion of SEM source keywords, we can clearly and effectively match our energy and resources in advertising, thereby maximizing ROI.

b. User browsing behavior can be analyzed

Nanjing xxx company searched Baidu search engine for "Plan Name = Function - Metadata Management, Unit Name = G - Metadata Management, Keyword = Metadata Management" under Baidu promotion, entered the DataPipeline official website and submitted a Demo application for trial. This information will automatically enter the CRM, and the relevant information will be sent back to iResearch Ark. We drill down on the user's browsing behavior on the official website to see what content he has viewed on the official website, how long he stayed there, and how many times he visited within a certain period of time. In this way, we can predict how much interest this customer has in us. Of course, Analysys’ value is not limited to this.

c. UTM parameters are a powerful tool for tracking channel sources

Generally, we can locate a registration channel source by adding 3-4 parameters to SEM/SEO, content marketing, online activities/offline activities and other registration channels. Interested friends can take a look at the details of UTM parameters: https://docs.zhugeio.com/datamanager/utm_mark.html;

2) Make good use of BI reports: Let the data speak

Based on CRM customer data, we will build the CEO's market management cockpit, full marketing funnel analysis, ROI analysis, cost analysis, etc. Through data analysis, we can drill down on the conversion rate at each stage to support the improvement of deficiencies.

a. CEO's Market Management Cockpit

b. Marketing full funnel analysis

The effect analysis charts are as follows, I will not share them one by one.

• The regional and industry distribution of winning orders;
• POC geographical distribution, POC industry distribution, POC failure cause analysis, POC average turnover cycle;
• Average order turnover cycle;

(4) Sorting out the shortcomings and optimization of the current situation at each stage

With institutional guarantees, smooth processes, data sedimentation and governance, and data analysis presentation, all we need to do is find optimization points and solutions. Only by implementing the details to the end can the value of the market be fully realized. Only by tracking the entire life cycle of the leads, clearly understanding the situation of each customer (for large customers, sampling can be used to sort out and solidify the process), and executing the details of each stage to the end, can the market find optimization points, put forward constructive suggestions and come up with solutions.

1) Sorting out the current status of each stage

The following figure is a summary of some current issues in each stage from leads—>MQL—>SQL—>Business Opportunities·OPP—>POC—>Signing (the actual decision-making process and problems are far more complicated than this page of PPT):

2) Conversion rate optimization points at each stage

The following figure is a list of optimization points I have selected for some current issues in each stage from leads—>MQL—>SQL—>OPP·SQL—>POC—>signing orders:

(5) Good cross-departmental collaboration: Mobilize resources from all parties to support the market in producing high-quality content

The content required for conversion marketing actions at different stages is different. Marketing needs to assist sales in preparing the materials needed in the order-making process - industry solutions, technical white papers, customer case collections, etc., to increase business opportunity conversion.

1) Professional content produced by professionals

Since our products are too technical, it is almost impossible for the marketing department to produce professional articles on technology and product directions. Therefore, in terms of professional content production strategy, we have been exploring appropriate marketing methodology. We plan articles through four aspects: market insights, topic determination, channel planning, and results to be achieved (such as lead evaluation and article coverage). We communicate needs with various departments and coordinate with various departments to assist the market in producing professional and in-depth articles. At the same time, the marketing department is responsible for writing customer cases and brand work.

The ancients said: "Those who seek the best will get the middle, those who seek the middle will get the bottom, and those who seek the bottom will get nothing." We continuously influence potential customers through high-quality content, activities and wide-ranging communications. Therefore, it is particularly important to strengthen the output of professional articles in four aspects: the company's CEO on product concepts and future trends, the service department head on customer practice cases, the CTO on the leading technical knowledge in the industry, and the product department head on product advantages and various version iteration articles, so as to give potential customers a three-dimensional professional perception effect.

It is worth noting that in startups, the continuous output of professional articles by various departments requires data monitoring to determine whether it can bring in lead registrations and business opportunity conversions. Only by verifying the value of the article in terms of lead registration can we continue to mobilize company resources to invest in the production of high-quality content.

Take the following figure as an example. Through tracking, we can clearly know that this user read a product article published on WeChat on June 3. By checking the article published on June 3, we can locate who wrote which article and generated the registration. After the lead is automatically imported into CRM, by tracking the subsequent status, we can know the quality of the lead.

Through efforts and exploration in content marketing in 2019, the company's management now highly recognizes that high-quality content can arouse customer interest and the quality of registered and registered users, and has written the department's provision of professional and high-quality manuscripts into the team's KPI.

(6) The effect of closed-loop practice of lead lifecycle management

In 2019, the entire process of closed-loop management of leads was completed, and the growth in the number of market leads was twice that of 2018. The goal for 2020 is to refine each stage of operations, optimize the lead conversion process through data analysis, build an efficient marketing team, improve ROI, and reduce costs and increase efficiency.

Conclusion

The replicability and implementation of lead lifecycle management demonstrates its value. I personally think the core is "one center and two basic points":

One center: stick to the original intention. Recognize the value of the closed-loop lead lifecycle management, focus on this goal, and persevere. We will cut through mountains and build bridges across rivers, and we will never give up until we reach our goal.

One of the basic points: institutional guarantee. The market is revenue-oriented and shares the same only metric with sales: revenue.

The second basic point: speak with numbers. Continue to drill down into details and continuously optimize each stage from “promotion channels -> display -> clicks -> leads -> MQL -> SQL -> business opportunities·OPP -> POC -> order signing”. As Chen Yong said in "Super Conversion Rate", "Only when the process control is refined to every step can it be successfully replicated."

Written in the end - my experience of To B big data Marketing

For To B companies, no matter how many theories and practices they have heard, they still have to walk the road and practice on their own, and overcome various pitfalls. The same is true for market practitioners. But if we study the mistakes others have made, we may be able to do better next time.

Leads (clues)—>MQL (market-recognized leads)—>SQL (sales-recognized leads)—>business opportunities·OPP—>POC—>order signing—>building a closed loop of brand and customer acquisition, on a large scale and with refinement, is worth exploring and practicing for the rest of our lives.

Since the To B market has a cross-industry audience and complex business systems, it requires our market to continuously delve into the breadth and depth of the industry. Only in this way can we be able to combine our understanding of the product with industry insights and transform it into product value recognition, packaging, labeling, and value communication.

From Zhuge IO to Yonghong Technology, and then to DataPipeline. Product complexity and application scenarios are becoming more inclined towards the underlying technology and sinking from the downstream of the ecological value chain to the connecting link. This means that the market must not only have a certain understanding of its own products, businesses and technologies, but also have a certain understanding of the services of upstream and downstream big data vendors including cloud computing, databases, data warehouses, middle platforms, BI, etc.

When I first came into contact with it, I was completely at a loss when I saw these technical and industry-specific terms. The lack of professional knowledge in the industry results in the center having more than enough capacity but less than enough in actual marketing work. I have been confused, I was so anxious that I couldn't sleep for many nights, my self-confidence was completely destroyed, and I doubted myself many times. When I stepped on one pit after another, stepped over it, and looked back, I realized that all these objective factors were due to my own lack of ability.

To B is not easy, so cherish every moment you have. To B Marketing requires the entire industry's marketers to work together to continuously improve their overall quality, so as to enhance the industry's recognition of the value of B2B marketers.

Author:rainful

Source: rainful

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