Also deal with these questions / topics:

If you are facing these or similar challenges, I will be happy to support you in overcoming them and activating the potential of digitalization for your company’s success.

This tried-and-tested strategy canvas is the roadmap to success:

The individual elements build on each other. For the introduction of lead management / marketing / HR automation, I recommend that you set up a pilot project. The scope of the pilot project is defined and manageable. During the pilot project, you build up expertise and experience in your team and can transfer this to other tasks and objectives. I would be happy to support you in the strategy process and the implementation of this pilot project. Read here how the support is structured in the individual modules.

This first stage of the strategy process has two main objectives: The first is to jointly define the company’s goals and challenges and record them in writing. The second objective is to bring all participants (stakeholders) up to a common level of knowledge about the method, the process and the possible levers for the company.

For example, the following should be collected and defined:

• What goals are to be achieved?
• What are the challenges to date?
• What is the current customer structure?
• How large is the database?
• Who needs to be involved in the project, who are the stakeholders?
• What are the current processes in marketing and sales?
• How does marketing work?
• How does sales work?
• How do marketing and sales work together?
• Positioning on the market
• What is the competitive situation like?
• Which systems are currently in use?
• Time frame of the project
• etc.

The persona concept has proven itself for the definition and profiling of ideal customers or ideal applicants.

Buyer persona profiles are the basis for successful prospect generation and development and existing customer management. The creation of buyer persona profiles with marketing and sales is also a good basis for optimizing cooperation between the departments. The information from the detailed desired customer profiles is an important basis for designing relevant content, added value, processes and activities. However, the profiles must be detailed for this. Superficial “onpager” profiles do not help here. “Deep buyer persona” profiles support the design of targeted nurturing processes, approaches and gated and ungated content modules.

Candidate persona profiles support companies in presenting themselves attractively to applicants and developing suitable content and approaches.

The strike2 workshop for inbound SEO / keyword analysis is about finding the right keywords and phrases with which the desired customer or applicant searches. In this workshop, your SEO manager is also briefed in order to derive the search volume, the competition and possible activities.

The aim of this analysis is to check how your desired customers search and how you can optimize your activities accordingly in order to be found more and better by potential customers. The derivation and implementation of possible activities can be carried out together with your SEO (search engine optimization) manager (in-house or your existing service provider/agency) or with the strike2 SEO expert.

Content can be the fuel for your lead management and marketing activities. However, it must be relevant, helpful or entertaining for the respective target customers. However, many companies create and place content that is not suitable for the desired customers and their stage in the purchasing process. The content mainly deals with the provider and its offer (EGO posting). For lead generation, however, it is much more effective to offer content that addresses the pain points and interests of your desired customers (buyer persona) and matches their stage in the purchasing process. In the first step, we analyze your existing content / content modules to find out which of the profiled desired customers they are suitable for. We look at whether the content is suitable in principle for addressing your buyer persona and for which stage in the purchasing process it can be used. In the second part of the workshop, we use creativity techniques from innovation management to create a collection of topics and the basis for your editorial plan. Further steps are content conception and content distribution.

Touchpoints are the customer contact points at which prospective and existing customers can be reached. Once you have profiled your buyer persona and created relevant content, you can place it at the relevant customer contact points/touchpoints.

In the touchpoint analysis, we look at your existing prospective and existing customer contact points such as your website, blog, social media presence, specialist portals, etc. and check for buyer persona and lead management suitability. Your roadmap for future lead management activities is created from these findings. Please note that your address database (customers and prospects) is also a touchpoint that needs to be analyzed, evaluated and, if necessary, optimized.

There are several types of customer journey analyses. Not all of them are suitable for the preparation of marketing automation / nurturing processes. The marketing automation / pre-sales automation-compliant customer journey analysis is based on a detailed buyer persona profile and maps the purchasing process of (potential) customers for the initial purchase and repurchase. In the B2B sector, the buying center and those involved in the transaction are also taken into account.

The stages of the customer journey analysis according to the Schuster Model® are:

• Inform: The (potential) customer wants to find out about possible solutions for their pain points and target conditions. This content component is the lead magnet and must be relevant enough to receive an email and opt-in.
• Empower: The lead or existing customer must be empowered to learn more about the topic and become decision-ready. Whitepapers and “how to” videos are particularly suitable here.
• Evaluate: The lead or existing customer learns about variants and gradations of the solution variants. Configurators or application notes are particularly suitable for this.
• Rate: The lead or existing customer evaluates the solutions and providers. The content modules must build or strengthen trust.
• Conclusion: The lead or existing customer is convinced and now wants to find out more about „Terms & Conditions“ and the next steps after the conclusion. At this stage, information ft he buying center is also useful.
• Use: If the customer uses the solution, there are opportunities for repeat/cross-selling and up-selling. What questions, goals and pain points does the customer have at this stage ft he customer journey?

Based on the findings of the previous steps, we work with you to create a customer journey analysis and the corresponding derivation for the nurturing processes.

The aim and task of nurturing processes is to develop leads until they are ready for sales and to reactivate existing customers. Five emails in a row is not a nurturing process. The basis for targeted nurturing processes are detailed buyer persona profiles and a marketing automation / pre-sales automation-compliant customer journey analysis.

Nurturing processes are used to provide potential customers and applicants with relevant, helpful or entertaining content appropriate to their stage in the purchasing or application process. The content is automated but personalized.

Based on the findings of the previous steps, we work with you to create the corresponding mapping of the customer purchase process (customer journey mapping) and the processes for the automated development of prospective customers. In addition to the nurturing process for new prospects (welcome-nurture), this can be, for example, a process for after-sales, repeat/cross/up-selling, account-based marketing or the support of B and C customers.

With the progressive profiling method, you collect profile data of the lead or applicant in the nurturing process if they have authorised this. Lead scoring is used to evaluate this implicit data and the explicit data of the profile. These parameters for the nurturing process are defined in the strike2 workshop.

The term lead routing describes the process of transferring leads from marketing to sales.

In our strike2 workshops, we define and train how the leads generated and developed in the nurturing process and reactivated existing customers are further managed in sales and led to closure.

By profiling your desired customers and developing your prospects and existing customers through lead-nurturing processes, your sales department will receive significantly more qualified and higher-quality leads. In order to be able to optimally manage these leads and lead them to closure, they need to know the history of these leads. They need to know the persona profiles, the content used and the processes in order to be optimally prepared for contact and support. We support your sales team in preparing for this in an appropriate training course.

Your new lead process offers a wide range of parameters, measuring points and options for measuring and evaluating your activities and deriving measures. Especially for the pilot project, it is important to establish a manageable metric that can be used to optimize the process.

Unfortunately, there is no template for the concrete implementation of lead management and marketing automation that can simply be imposed on a company. Every company is different, every market is different.

I do not recommend that you claim to be able to implement the described method perfectly at the first attempt. You will have a learning curve with your marketing automation project. However, one very positive aspect of the method described is that you can test and optimize very well. At each stage, you have many opportunities to measure and optimize the results and effects. The aim is to determine the effect of elements and to check whether and how this effect can be optimized.

Such elements can be, for example:

• Content modules
• Headlines
• E-mail texts
• Teaser texts
• images
• Calls to action
• Channels / touchpoints
• etc.

You can measure at every stage of the buying process and optimize your activities and content. To do this, it is advisable to build up a metric of the measurement points that are relevant to you. As always in online marketing, it does not make sense – especially at the beginning of your marketing automation activities – to measure everything that is measurable. It is best to set up a separate metric for each of your goals. For example, your metric for existing customer management will be different from the metric for new customer acquisition. Before you start your activities, however, you should always record the initial status so that you can measure and assess the changes resulting from the introduction of marketing automation.

A selection of measurement points that you can consider:

• Number of website visitors
• External links to your content (landing page, microsite, blog article, etc.)
• Visits to web subpages
• Number of visitors to the landing pages
• Conversion rate of website visitors to landing page visitors
• Number of leads through the landing page
• Conversion rate of landing page visitors to leads
• Blog article readers
• Clicks on emails
• Requirements of content modules in the lead-nurturing stages
• Number of leads in the respective stages of the purchase process
• Number of new customers
• Number of deals with existing customers
• etc.

The list could go on and on. However, success does not depend on the number of measurement points, but rather on the selection of measurement points that are suitable (because they are meaningful) for you. Of course, you can also break down the results of the measurement according to various parameters:

• Period
• Existing customer segment
• Keywords
• Buyer persona
• Product area
• Region/country
• Industry
• Sales employee
• Sources/channels
• etc.

In order to optimize your lead management / marketing automation activities, you should measure the results and derive the opportunities for optimization. Measuring the results is also important in order to communicate your successes within the company.

The following points should be clarified for the operational implementation of the planned activities:

• Selection of a marketing automation platform
• Who is responsible for setup and program management in the marketing automation tool? Initially and permanently?
• Who will create the content defined in the strategy process?
• Technical implementation of lead capture:
  • Templates (e-mail, landing page, …)
  • Landing page o Forms
  • etc.
• Internal communication with those involved in your company. Who communicates, when, what?
• Project management
• Measurement and evaluation parameters, KPIs, success monitoring
• Evaluation of the pilot project and decision on the next steps

The strategy development phase is followed by the selection of suitable tools and platforms. We are happy to support you in the selection process.
The tools and platforms should match your goals and the strategy you have developed. As a rule, the following tools and platforms come into question:

• Marketing Automation Platform
• Website visitor recognition
• Middleware / iPaas Integration
• AI assistants
• CRM system for indirect sales / trade / complex sales structure
• Dashboard
• Webshop
• Order portals
• Matching systems for cross-selling and up-selling