As you think about the coming year and the task of cleaning up your CRM database, here are a couple of categories we recommend you consider as you think about customizing and executing your drip marketing campaign. Give some thought to how you will communicate with each of these groups and what it means from a database structure to deliver the most relevant messages to your many contact groups and align marketing messaging to the sales pipeline.
10% Leads – these are the contacts in your database that you know nothing about. These leads are completely cold. The goal of communicating with these leads is to get a small expression of interest about your product. That small expression of interest is enough to move them forward in the pipeline.
20% Leads – these are contacts that have not committed to anything but have expressed some interest in what you do. The next goal for these leads is to build some sort of relationship and rapport. This can be accomplished through a meeting or an appointment. Think of 20% as the opportunity to make a good first impression. Your job in this phase is to add value value to the lives of these people so that they eventually become 30%. What can you do with your messaging that will lay the groundwork for a relationship?
30% Leads – These contacts are now leads. They have expressed interest in your offering. Your job now is to understand the timing, urgency of need, budget and to strengthen the relationship. Your 30%s need to be educated. So how will your messaging support their learning process? How will you communicate your benefits versus the competition? What can you do here to strengthen the relationship?
40% Leads – 40%s represent the hand-off from marketing to sales. At 40% you should should be a real opportunity with a budget, timing, etc. At this point, you’ll need to make a critical decision about the role of marketing in the sales process. Should Marketing continue to communicate with prospects or should Sales take over? There are pros and cons to either argument.
50% to 90% – Generally marketing is less involved in this phase of the pipeline.
100% Customers – From a messaging standpoint, there are the contacts in your database that are most often overlooked. They have already purchased. The job now is to keep them involved and engaged with your company until they are ready to purchase again. Think of ways to turn these contacts into an external sales force, making them your biggest champions.
Product/Service designations – Just because they purchased or are interested XYZ corp solutions doesn’t mean you should send them general information. Draft different messaging for different solutions.
00% Leads or Dead Leads – These contacts have decided to terminate their relationship with you. Some of the most valuable information you can gather is “why?”. Do you have a retention plan in place? Remember this is a broken relationship that needs mending. Think about how to recover communication with this group.
These messaging ideas are just idea starters. Thinking about your messaging early and building the right categories that support and tie together your sales and marketing process will save you time in the long-run. Aligned marketing messaging with the sales pipeline will accelerate dealflow. Your messaging strategy is as important as your overall marketing strategy.
If you’d like help understanding how our free marketing automation software and CRM data services can help you fine-tune communications to each audience, give us a call or send us an email.
