Part 3 of 3 in the discussion of the 2.0 Sales Cycle and its impact on high-tech marketers.
Yesterday, we talked about going mobile to reach prospects in the 2.0 Sales Cycle. Today, let’s talk about the last key challenge in reaching prospects – the difficulty in coordinating content distribution across web and social channels with email/marketing automation systems.
Email supported by marketing automation systems is no longer a standalone marketing channel. Integrating email with social media marketing, web analytics and more has become a necessary capability for email marketers in high-tech industries.
Most high-tech marketers promote their content via automated marketing campaigns via email. With a strong focus on content marketing, email marketing can become even more powerful. It takes the conversation you are supporting out across social channels and brings it right to your prospect’s Inbox. Now you’re taking the one to many conversation approach and are engaging in a direct 1:1 communication with your prospect.
But the ability to synchronize content marketing with email campaigns requires integration between email/marketing automation systems with content management systems.
One of the best practices around content marketing that we see our clients do is present different types of content to their leads database through email campaigns. Depending on what type of content a prospect persona expresses interest in – the marketing team can place them in different stages of the buying cycle. For example, when you send an email to a prospect encouraging him to visit a microsite that discusses the general need for enterprise application security, you know that prospect is in a different stage of the buying cycle than the one visiting a landing page with an ROI calculator because he’s looking for numbers to justify the purchase.
But typical marketing automation systems provide broad campaign management and marketing analytics; look to add the ability to focus on the individual user – just as if you engaged in an email conversation. Ensure that you integrate the concepts of marketing automation with web content management and delivery. That way you are serving up content that is truly personalized to your visitors’ experiences and delivering the right at the right time. When your email marketing/marketing automation systems is integrated with your web content management system, you’ll benefit as it accelerates the process of moving an anonymous website visitor through the marketing funnel to become a qualified sales lead.
For more information about integrating email and marketing automation with web content management as part of your overall digital presence, read our whitepaper, “Benchmarking Your Digital Marketing Strategy.”
