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Prepare for Marketing Automation:
5 Tips to Maximize ROI

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Demand Gen Report: @DG_Report
Carol Krol: @CarolKrol
Act-On Software: @ActOnSoftware
Linda West: @misslindawest
Seas Marketing, LLC: @seasmarketing
Kari Seas: @kseas

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MODERATOR:
Carol Krol
Editor-in-Chief, Demand Gen Report
Panelists
Kari Seas
Owner
Seas Marketing, LLC
@kseas
Linda West
Sr. Dir., Marketing Services & Operations
Act-On Software
@misslindawest

PREPARING FOR
MARKETING AUTOMATION
ADOPTION
5 TIPS TO MAXIMIZE YOUR ROI

What Comprises Marketing Automation?
Customers
EMAIL
NURTURING
WEB
FORMS
SOCIAL
PROSPEC
T
SOCIAL
PUBLISH
ACTIVITY
SCORING
LEAD
SCORING
LANDING
PAGES
WEBINARS REPORTING
SEGMENTATION

Simplified
Every time a
prospect
interacts with
your brand -
IT MEANS
SOMETHING
So track,
measure, and
analyze every
interaction
TO SELL
SMARTER
Customers

The Invisible Journey
70%
of the buying process is now
complete by the time a prospect
is ready to engage with Sales
-SiriusDecisions

Marketing plays a role across the life-cycle
Today the customer dictates
the actions and messages
that marketing and sales
should take.

Marketing Automation - Your Command Center
• Tracks, scores, measures, and connects
marketing activities
• Manages the brand experience across
multiple channels and the customer lifecycle
• Offers personalized experiences — the most
modern ones offer “adaptive” experiences

increase in qualified leads2
“Savvy marketers no longer see marketing automation as an extra. It’s mission-
critical to both marketing and sales for a variety of reasons.”
- SiriusDecisions
Marketers who use marketing automation to accelerate leads see:
451% 417% 47%
increase in revenue when
combined with process 3
larger purchases than
non-nurtured leads4
Add Rocket Fuel to Your Marketing Engine

In this crash course, we’ll give you a simple roadmap that will help you prepare your
organization to adopt marketing automation.
With a little preparation, you’ll see results right away and accelerate your return
on investment.
Let’s Get Started!
The Foundation for Success

1. Get Organized
Once you have the basics in place,
you’ll be ready to start sending
emails. Build the best campaign
you can, with the assets you have
now. You can build your programs
up and out as you learn by doing.

The Three ”Must Dos’ To Get Started
Assemble Your Data
As you collect your data,
consider indexing your lists
for ease of reference. Also
think about the completeness
and hygiene of your data.
1
Gather Your Content
Get your eBooks,
whitepapers, sell sheets,
webinar recordings, etc. into
one place (folder/spreadsheet)
so that they are easy to access
for your automated programs.
A content audit would help at
this point but not required.
2
Look for Strengths
Look for opportunities.
Where is your data and
content strong? Are there
segments of your market ripe
for the picking? While you
needn’t segment your first
campaigns, you will likely
want to later.
3
And Map Everything to the Buyer’s Journey…

The Modern Buyer’s Journey
Increase
inbound activity
& website
traffic
Amplify social
media
engagement
Consistently
communicate
brand value
Increase website
conversions
Maximize trade
show & online
event success
Increase lead
volume
Educate, engage
& build trust
with prospects
Enable account-
based marketing
Seamless lead
handoff to sales
Prioritize leads
& engage at the
right time.
Reduce cold-
calling
Enable sales
with content &
templates
Welcome,
onboard & train
new customers
Capitalize on
upsell & cross-
sell
opportunities
Increase loyalty
and retention
rates
MarketingOpportunities

Mind Your Gaps!
Increase
inbound activity
& website
traffic
Amplify social
media
engagement
Consistently
communicate
brand value
Increase website
conversions
Maximize trade
show & online
event success
Increase lead
volume
Educate, engage
& build trust
with prospects
Enable account-
based marketing
Seamless lead
handoff to sales
Prioritize leads
& engage at the
right time.
Reduce cold-
calling
Enable sales
with content &
templates
Welcome,
onboard & train
new customers
Capitalize on
upsell & cross-
sell
opportunities
Increase loyalty
and retention
rates
MarketingOpportunities

Map your content to customer lifecycle stages
Establish trust
and thought
leadership
• Present solutions to pain points
• Aid in the purchase decision-making process
• Validate purchase decision
Training,
education, and
adoption

2. Sync with Sales
Once you harness the power of
marketing automation, you’ll
deliver a larger volume of high-
quality, sales-ready leads. That’ll
make both your sales team, and
executives, smile. Keep the
momentum by having follow-up
processes in place. It’s this open
dialogue that will ensure sales
gets the leads they want, and that
the leads are promptly attended
to.

Set Up Your Pilot Lead Management Program
Meet with Sales to Explain the
Benefits
Show them the new insights they’ll be able to glean with the platform – such as
what content prospects have viewed, or how many times they’ve visited your
website.
Agree on a
Handover Process
Define how qualified leads will be distributed to reps, and make sure everyone on
the team knows exactly what to expect when they receive a new lead.
Define a Sales Follow-up Process
In the beginning your definition should be simple and loose. For example, after a
prospect views product-related content, sales will give them a call within 48 hours.
Connect Your Marketing
Automation & CRM Systems
This connection will allow you to notify sales when they have new leads to follow
up with. Your Act-On Customer Success Manager can help you set this up.
Learn Who Sales Really Wants
to Speak With
Work with sales to agree on which contacts are handed over as sales-ready leads,
and which need more nurturing. Define an engagement threshold, data
requirements, and profile requirements.
1
2
3
4
5

The Lead Hand-Off
Mutually agreed
lead scoring criteria
Agree on lead
qualification
criteria
How will sales reps
be alerted that a
new lead is
assigned?
Agree on
notifications
Create SLA on
response time, content,
etc.
Agree on the
follow-up

Lead Scoring
• Automatically give points to leads
based on behaviors or profile
attributes
• Allows marketing & sales to sort
and prioritize leads
• Marketing can nurture leads with
lower scores before passing off to
sales
• Re-establishes trust

Lead Scoring
• Lead scoring gives your company an objective system for ranking your leads
• Most scoring systems use ranking criteria that fall into two categories:
Group 1: Profile Group 2: Behavior
Is the user qualified to buy? Is the user engaged w/ the brand?
Demographics Behavior
Persona

Sales Intelligence
Real-time notifications
• Know when prospects or
customers visit the site (or even
a key page)
Timely engagement
• Be alerted when prospects are
most likely ready for a
conversation

Sales Intelligence
• Use every engagement
opportunity to learn more
• Share profile data with sales –
both demographic and
behavioral information
• Gathering intelligence will save
sales time and allow them to
tailor their conversation to the
individual

3. Assemble Your High
Performance Team
Getting the most out of your
marketing automation system
means getting the right team
members involved in the
deployment. When done right,
you will be able to deliver the
results of a large marketing
department with just a small staff.

Core Competencies You’ll Need for a Killer Team
Identify a resource to put the strategic backbone of your programs in place. Make sure this person
can set measurable goals (such as “increase Q2 leads by 10%”) and a strategic plan to achieve the
goal.
1
2
3
Strategy & Goal
Setting
Marketing
Operations
Content
Designate someone to implement and monitor the programs you build. Look for someone who is
naturally tech savvy and learns new systems quickly
You’ll need a resource to manage and produce emails, landing pages, images, and supporting
content for campaigns. Your internal team can do this, or you can rely on an agency/ freelancers.

4. Implement a Pilot
Nurture Program
Let’s get to the good stuff. It’s
time to point, click, drag, and drop
our way to a well-built marketing
engine.

Example
Automated Nurture
Program

Now it’s your turn: start with a brainstorm
Consider
touchpoints across
marketing and sales
Marketing +
Sales
Brainstorm the
steps of your first
nurture with a few
colleagues and a
whiteboard
Use a
Whiteboard
Keep your nurture
simple and
straightforward to start
Keep it Simple
to Start

Building your first automated program
Some steps can be completed in tandem if multiple team members are working on the project

5. Optimize &
Maximize Results
50% of marketing leaders say
analytics and reporting is
the most valuable feature of a
marketing automation system.
-Ascend2 & Act-On, Marketing
Automation Strategy Benchmark
Report

Start by identifying what success looks like
Establish overall
funnel metrics
Develop specific
KPIs to measure
progress for the
“gaps” you
identified earlier
Once you’ve
established your
goals, make sure
you have tracking
set up
Get buy-in from
the whole team

Map your goals to customer lifecycle stages
Most-used
metrics:
Website Traffic
Social Followers
& Engagement
Brand search
volume
Revenue-
generated
Most-used metrics:
Leads Generated
Opportunities Generated
Revenue Generated
Return on Investment (ROI)
Most-used
metrics:
Website Traffic
Retention Rates
NPS Score
Revenue
Generated

(Source: eConsultancy)
For 2 years running, A/B
testing is the most used
method for improving
conversions

Can you predict which tactic
got the most conversions?

VERSION B
VERSION A

VERSION B
VERSION A

VIDEO GATING STRATEGY

VIDEO GATING STRATEGY

VIDEO GATING STRATEGY
VERSION A VERSION B VERSION C

VIDEO GATING STRATEGY
VERSION A VERSION B VERSION C

THANK YOU!
www.act-on.com
@actonsoftware @misslindawest @kseas @seasmarketing

#AutomatedROI
MODERATOR:
Carol Krol
Editor-in-Chief, Demand Gen Report
Q&A / Panelists
Kari Seas
Owner
Seas Marketing, LLC
@kseas
Linda West
Sr. Dir., Marketing Services & Operations
Act-On Software
@misslindawest

#AutomatedROI
View this webinar on-demand at:
http://dg-r.co/AutomatedROI
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