The key to successful demand generation programs is having consistent Sales follow-up of qualified leads. Sales needs to see consistent lead qualification criteria between Campaigns and tactics. It is critical that Marketing and Sales needs to have a common agreement on lead qualification definitions. GrowthPoint recommends a simple grading scheme for sales ready leads, based on 3 grades to communicate priority. There will be other lead grades that only marketing will use for non-sales ready leads. Example Prospects who have expressed some interest, but are not ready to a Sales person to contact.

The 3 sales ready lead grades are below.

Hot

Prospect has been through filters to remove (competitors, and other non influencing individuals), and indicated there is an active project they are working on, and would like to be contacted by an local expert.

It is important to realize there will be few of this graded leads, because many buyers would like to self serve vs vs talking to a sales person and be “sold”. Hot leads are urgent because the Prospect is waiting for someone to follow-up. The value in dollars of Hot leads are not necessarily and higher then other graded leads. Typically the Prospect is mush further down the buying process then other graded leads. Examples of a Hot leads are

• Tradeshow booth worker met with prospect who indicated they would like to learn more about the products/solutions and have someone follow up with them.
• Prospect downloaded a white paper off and indicated they would like to be contacted by a local expert
• Prospect attended a marketing hosted webinar asked questions indicating they have an active project that are going to make decisions on suppliers soon.
• Prospect has requested a quote for a product or service on the company website

Warm

Warm graded leads are where filtered prospects indicated they have needs that align with our products or services, authority based on position or Job Function, potentially a funded project or they are building the business case, but did not expressly say they wanted to be contacted. This does NOT mean these Prospect are not as important as a Hot leads, it means the Hot leads are more time sensitive because the Prospect is waiting for someone to follow up with them. Typically Warm leads are earlier in the buying process where it is easier to influence their preferences. Examples of Warm leads are:

• Tradeshow attendee where a company booth worker qualified the Prospect with buying influence, interest in company offerings, potential funded project, but did not specifically request a follow up.
• A webinar attendee who engaged the speaker with good questions and job function indicates they have influence in buying process
• Prospect who engaged with nurture program indicating they have a funded projected and job function indicates they have influence in buying process.
• Prospect requested a catalog, sample product, or demo and job function indicates they have influence in buying process.

FYI Only

This is a special grade lead for Sales they are told they do not have to follow up on these leads. The are just for their information. They may see a person in an account they are trying to crack, and this may be a good excuse to make contact with them.

FYI Only graded leads are to inform Sales there is a partially qualified Prospect who has responded to an Offer. Because these Prospects have not been fully qualified because of missing data, but have been through filters to remove non influencers or competitors.

Nurture

Nurture grade is when a Prospect has responded to a marketing offer like downloading a white paper, but are not qualified or Sales ready. The intent of Nurture grade leads is, to Nurture the Prospect over time building preference and trust. When the Prospect has been qualified with an opportunity, a Warm or Hot lead will be sent to Sales for follow up.

Create message and identify offers

Before you start creating your email, think about what it is you want the recipient to know or what action you’d like them to take. Create a message that will grab your prospect’s attention. Point out their pains and describe how you can solve them. Include the results your solution has produced or provide an offer that will help explain how you can solve their problem. Do not make the mistake of just telling the prospect what you do or offer. Take their perspective. Tell them what is in it for them. Consider that you are taking up their valuable time to read your email. The goal is to quickly and simply encourage your prospect to want to know more.

Enter email delivery information

In your project set up when you add a new blank prospect email the Email Summary will be mostly blank. If you need instructions on adding a transactional email to a project check the section Setting up a Basic Project. Once your project is set up to receive a prospect email you will see a blue envelope in your project drop down in the Campaign tab on the left side of your screen. 

1. In the Campaign list on the left of the screen, find and click on the template you created. Prospect emails are indicated by a blue envelope.  If you don’t see your email, click the plus sign next to the Campaign and/or Project to expand the list. When you click on the email icon, the Email Summary tab will open on the right side of the screen.
2. On the Email Summary tab, the (1) From Address will be the Default Address.  Click the Specific Address radio button to select an address from the drop down. From the dropdown menus along the right, select the data for each field. In fields that say “Type in search terms,” you can type a few letters of the desired field contents to see a list of matching results. Ensure that the Reply to Email is a valid email if you change from the default email address.
3. Enter a Subject Line for your message that is both descriptive and attention-getting.
4. For the Template Creation Method, (2) click the Wireframe radio button. In the Select Wireframe dropdown menu, (3) choose the wireframe design/layout you want to use.  You will find a template for Prospect Emails. This is a good option for a simple prospect email. You will see a popup message saying “Changing of wireframe may lead to removal of all statistics and data of the existing template.” It warns you that, if you started a template and then changed wireframes, it erases the content already entered. (4) Click Update to save your changes.You now have blank wireframe, ready to populate with your content.

Enter Email Content

In this step, you will use the new wireframe you selected and named, and fill it with the text, pictures, and other information to create your email. Before beginning this step, it is a best practice to have the text written and any images collected and ready to upload.

1. Click the (5) Edit Email tab at the top of your screen next to the Email Summary tab. You will see a blank wireframe template, ready for your content. It will show placeholders for your dynamic or variable content (text, images, links etc.). Places where you can enter text are indicated by placeholder text. Places where you can enter images are indicated by a grey box with the dimensions of the available area in pixels.
   The image also shows the fixed content that is common to all emails based on this wireframe.  You cannot change that content by editing the email. You would have to go back and create a new wireframe or edit an existing wireframe to change this content.
2. To add text, click on any block of text in the wireframe. This opens the Edit Dynamic Section window with a text editing window where you can add or edit text. You have the common text editing tools available in the toolbar. When copying/pasting text, it will retain the formatting from the source document. In most cases, it is better to click the Strip button in the toolbar to remove all formatting. Another method is, when pasting your text, to right-click and choose Paste Plain Text. Once entered, you can format text with the basic tools, such as bold, italics, underlining and bullet points.
3. Also in the toolbar you have the ability to include hyperlinks in the text. Details on entering a hyperlink can be found below.
4. You can add system fields that automatically fill in with information from the database that is unique to that prospect. For example, if you insert the field ::Name:: your email could include the name of the prospect. Another field you might want to include is the sales person’s name and contact information.
5. After entering or editing text, click Save to return to the wireframe template. Note that if you do not update or remove the default text, it will appear in your wireframe.
6. When you are done making edits, click Update at the bottom of the page to save your changes. If you forget to save you will get reminder message to save before you leave the screen.

Add a hyperlink to your text

Adding hyperlinks allows you direct recipients to landing pages, documents in LeadCentral and other online resources. You can include multiple hyperlinks in the text of your template, enabling the recipient to quickly access the resources. You can also attach links to images.

To enter a hyperlink, from the Edit Email tab, highlight the block of text where you want to add the hyperlink. Click the (1) Hyperlink button.

After you click on the Hyperlink button, the Hyperlink Manager window will open.

You have several options for the type of hyperlink (option 1 above). In this instance, you will most likely want to link to a document, a landing page or manually enter a URL. These options are explained below.

• Link to document stored within LeadCentral: Creates a link to documents stored within LeadCentral. The advantage of linking to documents stored in LeadCentral is that they system can track these downloads to identify how frequently an asset is downloaded and by who. You can also link to a document stored outside LeadCentral by using the “Manually enter URL” option (below), but data about that download will not be tracked. After selecting this option, you will need to (2) navigate to the document stored in LeadCentral.

• Link to landing page within LeadCentral: This option creates a link to an existing landing page within LeadCentral. The advantage of linking to landing pages within LeadCentral is that the system can collect additional information about the recipient, including the creation of a new lead. You can navigate to the landing page three ways:

  1. Select Landing Page by Campaign/Project: Shows all the available landing pages organized by campaign/project
  2. Select Landing Page by Custom Process: Show only the landing pages used in custom processes, organized by custom process.
  3. Select Landing Page by Domain: Show all of the domains, and all of the landing pages within each domain.

After clicking the radio button to indicate the location of the landing page, click in the (2) Landing Page dropdown and choose the desired landing page. You have two (3) contact data handling options, Update Data on existing lead and Copy Data to new lead. Most likely you will want to update the data on the existing lead. The details of the two options are below.

1. Update Data on existing Lead: Specialized applications may require this option. Before selecting this option, contact GrowthPoint.
2. Copy Data to new lead: Always select this option. When the recipient clicks on a landing page, the system automatically creates a new lead and populates it with all known information from the contact record. This avoids the need for the recipient to re-enter data and improves the conversion rate tremendously.
3. Manually enter URL: Creates a link to pages or assets outside of LeadCentral. Clicks and downloads related to these links are not tracked by LeadCentral. When possible, upload the document to LeadCentral and use the “Link to document stored within LeadCentral” option.

Format Hyperlink options

In the Hyperlink Manager at the bottom of the Hyperlink Manager screen, section 3 on the Hyperlink graphic, you will see a number of optional fields for completion:

1. URL: If you selected a document or landing page in LeadCentral, the URL will automatically fill in. Otherwise, you will have to manually fill in the URL.
2. Link Text: This field simply repeats the text that you selected to be highlighted as your link. You can edit the link text here and that change will also be made within the email.
3. Link Name: Enter a descriptive name of what the link connected to. This will greatly simplify review of reports related to the email because the number of clicks on each link will be reported by the link name you enter. This provides at-a-glance analysis of the most-clicked links. This field is only for reporting and will not appear in the email. Note that if you select “View email in browser” or “Forward email to a friend” you cannot add a link name.
4. Target: Defaults to “New Window” which is the preferred option.
5. Tooltip: Text entered in this field will appear as a pop-up when the recipient hovers over the link.
6. CSS Class: Defaults to “Apply Class” which is the preferred option.

After creating and formatting your hyperlink, click OK to save the changes.

Create E-mail Hyperlink

This option creates a link that will open a preaddressed email. From the Hyperlink Manager, click the (1) E-mail tab. In the Address field, enter the destination email address. The Link Text field shows the text you highlighted in the email as the link. Fill in the Subject of the email. Leave the CSS Class dropdown with the default selection, “Apply Class.”

Test email and links

Before sending out your email, you’ll definitely want to do some testing. You don’t want to make any embarrassing mistakes in front of your recipients. Some general testing tips include: Proof your content, Test all the links, Confirm the address information, and Review the subject line for accuracy. The benefit of using a wireframe is you will not need to test the message in a variety of email engines as the templates have been tested previously.

Sending a test message

1. On the Email Summary tab click the (6) Test Email button. In the pop-up window, the radio button Select mail Source should be set to Sample. In the To:  field, enter the destination email address, typically your address for initial testing.  Review the email, make adjustments or corrections as necessary, and send the test email. Continue to send individual test emails to yourself or others until you are satisfied that it is correct, properly formatted, and ready for further testing.  When you are done click Exit.
2. Another option for testing is to override all the emails for a project. This option would be used when you want to fill out a landing page and test what emails are generated and what they look like. The process will grade the leads as Normal and send all the emails that are set up in the Project to the email address that was entered on override.
   To place a project on override, check the box in Customer Communications section of the project labeled Redirect all Project email, and enter an email address. When you are done click Update at the bottom of the project page.To get to this location, open the project by clicking on the project name on the left side of your screen, the Project Summary tab will open on the right side of your screen.  When you are done, click Update at the bottom of the project page. Remember to remove the :Redirect all Project Email” email address,  uncheck the box and click Update on the bottom of the page when you are finished testing to remove the project from override. If you don’t the leads will be entered, graded and assigned correctly but all emails will be sent to the email address indicated in the redirect all project email box.

Now that your process is set up, the prospect email content is entered and the sale email is in place it is time to start testing. Before you start make sure your Process is set up in test mode.

Set the Process to Test Mode

1. Open the Process and take a look at the Process Summary tab (1) on the right side of the screen
2. The Run in Test Mode box (2) should be checked
3. Test Mode Time Duration set (3) – recommendation of a 5 minute delay
4. Change the Process to Active (4) (check the Yes Radio button)
5. The Process Run Schedule (5) should be set to Manual Execution Only
6. Set the Redirect all process emails to yes (6) and enter your email address (either a company or personal email address will work)
7. The Source of the Records (7) (Leads from Project) will already be set to your project
8. Add the ::Name:: token to the subject line of all the processes emails. This will have to be removed before you go live but it will make testing easier

Test file details

1. There is a sample file in your Tool Menu, named Sample Webinar Automation Project Test File. It would be helpful to download this first before your next step.
2. In the test files the columns in blue are the fields that will be imported, the yellow columns in your sample file track if the emails are received, the green columns track how to respond to each email. By mapping out your test plan ahead of time you ensure that you can test each step of the process.
3. The email addresses in your test file do not have to be valid.  This is because all emails will be sent to the redirect email address you have in place (step 6 above)
4. Edit the file so the name in the file to matches the email address. For example [email protected] for the email address would match the name of mytestname1. This allows you to test each path of the process and keep track on what email you are processed
5. Include a column for “Attended Webinar” in your sample file, indicate Yes on 1/2 the records.
6. In the file for your tracking purposes add columns to track if each email is received, for example “Thanks for attending” email, “Thanks for viewing on demand webinar” email, and did not attend email. Change those columns depending on what emails you are sending to the prospect.
7. Include a column for each of the decision points in your process, for example was view recording clicked, was the whitepaper offer click, was the landing page for an offer submitted, etc.
8. Include a column to verify the sales email was received when it should have been. For example when Hot lead is generated (when someone asks to talk to a sales person) an email should be sent. You can follow the steps in your automation process, this is a typical configuration.
9. If the column header and value is one used in the process make sure the test file and final vendor file contain clean data. For example if the field “Attended Webinar” with a value of Yes causes specific action in the process, then the data in the import file must be clean for the right action to be taken. In this example the header doesn’t say “Went to Webinar” versus “Attended Webinar” or the values are Y vs. Yes.
10. Send a test file to [email protected] and indicate what project the file needs to be entered. The project name (8) will be the one listed on your Process summary tab.

What should I look at in my process to confirm it is working?

1. Check all the emails, prospect and sales for content and confirm the subject lines are correct and the offer links point function and point to the correct location
2. If there is a “Contact Me” landing page does it prepopulate with the prospects information
3. Click manually start the process to start testing the process. If there is another process running the test will not start. You can tell when the process is running based on the Last Run Time field.
4. Was the first email received, if the first email was not opened was the second copy of the email received. This is assuming there is a second drop to non-openers is set up
5. If the offer link is clicked does the next step move correctly tot he next step
6. If a landing page is filled out so that a sales lead should be created is the sale email received? Does that lead have the correct grade, correct source description and correct assignment. On the lead detail sheet is all the key fields that you entered on the lead correct and present on the lead
7. If a sales email is not sent confirm there should not have been one sent. For example if the lead is graded as Cold, Nurture or FYI no sales email would have been sent.

When you are done testing, what are the next steps?

1. If there were leads not processed as expect discuss this with your GrowthPoint project manager.
2. Request the test leads are deleted by your GrowthPoint project manager. It is helpful to know the project name and the email addresses you used in the test file
3. Remove the ::Name:: taken from the email subject line of all emails
4. Open the process and click on the Edit Process tab, click the Reset Count Button, you will get a pop-up message to confirm this is what you want to do. Click OK. then the Save button. A confirmation screen will appear, click OK. The screen will change back to the Process Summary page
5. Click on Automation button at the top of the screen.
6. You do not need to resent the counts on any landing pages, prospect or sales emails, by resetting the counts all are reset to zero.
7. On the Process Summary page remove the check box that has the process on test mode (2)
8. Change the redirect all process emails (6) radio button to No. The redirect email address you have entered will disappear
9. Change the process to active (4).
10. Set the Process Run schedule drop down (5) to daily. You can choose more often, but once a day for import files should be frequent enough.
11. If you so choose you can request that only a portion of your file is imported so you can watch the details on the first few records pass through the process.
12. Send the lead file to [email protected] include the project name and make sure the column names and values are correct before you do so
13. After the file is imported and your process starts you will see leads moving along the process.
14. In the event that you have someone that wants to be removed from the process after they enter it they will need to be suppressed from future emails.