Marketing Automation: From LinkedIn to Prospects
Quick Link
If you don’t have time to read this entire post (it’s long) you can skip the details and go directly to the landing page: Revenues Have Plateaued. Now What?
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Background
Are these terms familiar to you?
Drip Marketing
Marketing Automation
Email Sequencing
Lead Nurturing
Automated Email Campaign
Lifecycle emails
Autoresponders
As far as I know, these are all the same things. Maybe there are subtle differences but essentially these are names for a way of sending a series of emails to someone who has opted in as a subscriber to an email list.
In most cases, the subscriber has viewed a post on social media or clicked on an ad and been redirected to a landing page. Then in exchange for coughing up their email address, they get something of tremendous value, or so they are told.
BTW, my preference for this type of marketing campaign is “Automated Email Lead Nurturing” but that is much too long. Let’s go with the well-worn phrase, “Marketing Automation”.
This technique for marketing has been around for at least 20 years in some form or other. I remember hiring a guy about 10 years ago. He promised the world. He told me that once everything was set up (he loved AWeber), revenues would start flowing. I was so naive. I didn’t know what AWeber was (it’s an email automation platform). I didn’t know what email sequencing was (see the first sentence of the previous paragraph). I didn’t know how to measure success (Joanne and I weren’t friends yet). But I was optimistic, and I took the bait.
I think John-Boy or whatever his name was took a month or maybe it was 6 weeks to set things up. I kept asking him every week, “How’s it going?” His reply - consistently - was, “I need a bit more time.” We invested a bunch of money into his efforts. We believed. But it failed miserably. Totally. Stupidly. I still kick myself for believing in something I didn’t understand.
We even tried HubSpot for a year or more. We jumped in like Jonah and the whale. The result? A total disaster. A total waste of money.
Then we tried using MailChimp. It worked but the interface was and is awful. The reports are useless. I would rather poke my eye with a fork than try and make MailRump work.
Now I am doing it again. Writing an ebook (which is fantastic btw - you have to read it!). Setting up landing pages. Writing dozens of carefully crafted emails. And bragging to you about how wonderful “marketing automation” is.
Actually, I’m not bragging just yet. At least not about the fantastic performance and outstanding ROI (in the sweet spot). What I will brag about is that I think I have figured out a few things. And some of the tips and tricks may be valuable for you (assuming you are adventurous and willing to follow my lead down this tortuous path).
Why Bother with “Marketing Automation”
Let’s start with the why. Why am I doing this again? Well, I have a few reasons:
I want to learn how to do this - instead of feeling stupid.
I want to understand what others are doing - instead of feeling like an idiot.
I want to experience success - instead of hearing all the hype.
I want to be a believer - really!
I want it to be worth the effort (and it is a lot of effort) - instead of blowing in the wind.
I want to use software to automate steps - instead of doing manual and boring tasks.
I want to talk to people - instead of pounding on the keyboard all day.
I want to create a lead generation engine - instead of waiting for the phone to ring (who even uses a phone nowadays).
I want to succeed - instead of experiencing failure.
I want to prove that there is a positive ROI - instead of seeing $100 bills burn to ashes.
Okay, enough whining. At this point, you are probably asking, “What have you done?”
Let’s start by looking at the model for a customer acquisition funnel that Joanne O'Connell and I have developed. If the model works and fits reality then we should be able to apply it to marketing automation, drip marketing, email sequencing, or whatever you want to call it.
On a side note, Joanne and I are writing a book on a system of marketing that we call, “Intentional Marketing”. The book will be published... sometime soon.
Our funnel for measuring the success of customer acquisition has 5 generic levels:
Impressions at the top. Understanding how to generate impressions is critical. I’ll get back to this in a bit.
Visits which in the case of marketing automation are the number of people who visit the landing page.
Prospects are the people who give up their email addresses in exchange for the valuable information hidden in the promise of a downloadable ebook.
The Offer which is subtly (or not so subtly) included in the sequence of emails.
An Outcome which, in this case, occurs when a Prospect accepts an offer and becomes a buyer of one of our amazing products.
The beauty of our model is that we can actually collect measures for each level of the funnel (a noticeable shortcoming in most other marketing funnels). This isn’t pie-in-the-sky theory. This is real. The model reflects reality.
If an impression is created, we can measure it. If someone comes to the landing page, we can count it as a visit. If someone fills out the form, they become a prospect. If someone asks us “How much does that cost?”, then we can record that as an offer. And if someone buys something from us, we can see revenues piling up in our bank account. (Remember, I’m an optimistic believer.)
Technology Used
I’ll be honest. The bad news is that figuring out the technology is a pain in the butt. Here is what we are using:
LinkedIn - Free but I’m planning to use Sales Navigator for $60 per month
Leadjet.io - $10 per month
Squarespace - $20 per month, including hosting
PDF for the ebook - One-time fee of about $350 for formatting
Zapier - Free
Copper CRM - $120 per month for the Business version
Revenue Catalyst - Free for “do-it-yourselfers”, contact me
A total of about $200 per month
There are two pieces of good news.
This combination works.
The costs are relatively cheap.
Process Used
LinkedIn - The Best Prospecting Tool Ever
Everything in this process starts with LinkedIn. I’ll be using LinkedIn to interact with people who are already first-degree connections. I have over 10,000 so I’ll have to narrow that down - maybe I’ll start in Alberta and just message people that I think will be interested.
At some point, I’ll generate new connections by using filters in LinkedIn to find people who are:
Second-degree connections - why not...
In a role such as an owner, CEO, or president - because they make decisions
Part of a company that has over 50 employees - a rough indicator of “have a need” and “have money to invest”
In an area like Texas - we have had some good success in this state
In an industry like construction - we have some good clients in this industry
Leadjet - CRM Enrichment
Leadjet is a new program that I’m trying out. It is a Chrome extension that syncs Copper CRM with LinkedIn. This is the best program I have seen in a long time. It is brilliant.
We are an affiliate, so if you want to try it use this link https://www.leadjet.io/?fpr=jeff50
Squarespace - For Landing Pages
We use Squarespace as the content management system and hosting for our website. It is relatively easy to use (even I can use it). Setting up landing pages is a breeze. Adding forms is easy once you get the hang of it.
Squarespace has an email marketing component. We use this to collect information from prospects when they fill out the form.
PDF - Created by a team called Camelot
This is the format we used for our ebook. The main reason is that the Portable Document Format is pretty ubiquitous - everyone is familiar with this format and ebooks look great. Our ebook is called “Revenues Have Plateaued, Now What?” Neither Damon nor I are designers, so we hired a designer from UpWork to make it look pretty. Once you have downloaded the file, let me know what you think.
Zapier - The Secret Sauce
It’s 2021. You would think that Squarespace and Copper CRM would talk to each other. One platform hosts the landing page - Squarespace. The other collects the prospects and sends out the sequence of emails - Copper CRM.
But they don’t. Or at least I couldn’t figure out how to get them to talk to each other. I had to use my lifeline and call Dan Frederick to help me out. Dan suggested trying Zapier and setting up a Zap. True to form, he did his magic and it worked.
Now, when a person fills out the form on the landing page, Zapier pushes the contact details to Copper as a Lead. Zapier also tags the Lead with a Status of “Plateaued”. This comes in handy in the next step.
Copper CRM - Integrates with Gmail
This is the customer relationship management platform that we use. We selected this CRM because it integrates seamlessly with Gmail and Google Drive. The more I use it the more I like it. I recently upgraded to Business Class so that we have email sequencing and lead scoring. It has features galore.
One of the features in Copper (Business version) is “email sequencing”. This is the technology for sending out a series of emails in a timed sequence.
What Copper needs is a trigger. That trigger, in our current sequence, is the status of “Plateaued” in the status field of a new Lead. As soon as Copper sees this, the first email is sent out. Subsequent emails are sent based on a predetermined schedule.
Copper CRM also has a Lead Scoring system. Lead scoring is a system for assigning point values to prospects. The “score” is determined by behaviours done by the prospect. Certain behaviours are tallied, and the accumulated score is a signal of how likely the prospect is to become a customer. Simple actually.
Measuring Performance
Impressions
Everything in marketing starts with creating impressions. If your marketing campaigns are not generating impressions, there will be nothing to show at the lower levels.
The campaign that we have created starts with generating impressions on LinkedIn. We are not planning to advertise. Instead, I'll be connecting with people and inviting them to the landing page via a message. To start with, I’ll do this manually. There are software programs to help automate this step but use them with caution. WARNING: Read the terms of service for LinkedIn. Types of software in this category include BigLinker, Copilot, and LinkedHelper. A better option is to hire a person with a heart and a pulse to do this task.
I’m using my LinkedIn Profile page to connect with people and send messages. Ideally, I would like to know the number of impressions in the last month. With LinkedIn, impressions as a measure are available for company pages but not for personal profile pages. Instead, we have to use “profile viewers”. As we will see, this is fine.
The number we use for “impressions” doesn’t matter too much. Impressions are nearly always an estimate anyway. What we need is a number that changes based on actions that we take or decisions that we make. Our hope, (as per most marketing campaigns) is that as we interact with more people, the number of “viewers” will increase. For now, “viewers” as a stand-in for impressions is good enough.
Profile viewers “in the last 90 days” is less than ideal. It would be nice if we could specify a period of time like this month or last month. But this isn’t possible, so we have to use the available measures. Again, using a measure that is not exact is okay. What we really want to know is if there is a change, what direction is the change, and the amount of change. Tracking “profile viewers” meets these criteria.
One metric that is worth noting has changed since last week. This is red and negative, showing that the trend is declining - room for improvement.
In the future, if we decide to invest money in advertising, we can push the clicks to our company page. From the company page, we can measure “page views” or “unique visitors”. BTW, my preference would be “unique visitors” because this records people. We like counting people!
Visits
Tracking visits for a specific landing page is a bit tricky. Data in Google Analytics is a good place to start. In Google Analytics, getting the number of page views is easy. Login. Click on Behavior \ Site Content \ All Pages. Select the dates. Filter for the page - in this case, “plateaued”. Look for the number under Pageviews.
As you can see, in May, there were 140 page views. The problem with this number is that it is muddy. It includes multiple page views from individuals. As hinted at previously, what we want to know is the number of people who visited.
To get this number from Google Analytics, we need to narrow the data to just those people who visited the landing page. This is done by creating a “segment”. Click on “+ Add Segment” and name it. Next, specify the conditions. In this case, the condition is going to be based on someone visiting the landing page: /revenues-have-plateaued-now-what. Save.
Now, instead of looking at page views, we can look at the report for Acquisition \ All Traffic \ Channels.
The measure we want is the total number of Users i.e., people. In our situation, 14 people visited the landing page so far in May. Not nearly enough but a start.
In addition, we can determine the source of these visits:
Direct has 6 people (37%). These are people who know us and typed our domain name directly into the browser.
Organic Search has 5 people (31%). These are from people who did a search and found the page.
Social has 4 people (25%). I checked - all are from LinkedIn.
Referral has 1 person (6%). This person came from Outfunnel. Outfunnel is a technology partner that Copper CRM is using for email sequencing. All good.
What we know so far is that the tracking of visits is working. The process of this campaign is based on generating traffic from LinkedIn. If the campaign continues to work correctly, then the expectation is that in June there will be a higher volume and a higher percentage of users from LinkedIn.
Prospects
Creating impressions is relatively easy. In a similar fashion, gaining traction and increasing traffic to a landing page is not that hard. The real test of a successful marketing campaign is to generate prospects.
In the book that Joanne and I are writing, we define a prospect as a person in the Market who is a potential buyer, meaning that they intend to buy a product from a company at some time in the future. The characteristic that is important from the Intentional Marketing model is to be able to identify and measure prospects. A person is a prospect when the company can knowingly communicate with the prospect using the person’s contact information. This last sentence is critical. If we can’t communicate with the person, it is unlikely that they are a real prospect.
To measure the success at this level of the funnel, we need to switch platforms. Specifically, we need to log in to Copper CRM and see if anyone who has filled out the form is showing up as a prospect.
As mentioned above, each person that filled out the form on the landing page has been tagged with “plateaued”. If the system is working, then we should be able to count everyone with the status of “plateaued”. Using this criterion, you can see that we have 4 prospects (called Leads in Copper). One is me, so only 3 so far.
Summary Table
The process has been defined. The technology is in place. The steps have been created. It’s working. Here is the link to the landing page: Revenues Have Plateaued. Now What?
Be sure that you find the email and accept confirmation.
Now the fun begins - making connections and driving up impressions. Wish me luck.
Contact me if you have any questions or suggestions
Jeff Nelson
jeff@anduro.com
403-703-2247