Read this post to learn how you can leverage Marketing Automation beyond the initial sale to enable upsell and renewals.
Marketing Automation: The Status Quo
B2B marketers understand how to leverage Marketing Automation to warm new leads for a sale before it’s ready to be worked by a Sales Rep. What companies aren’t doing effectively is using Marketing Automation across all stages of the sales cycle.
A Marketing Automation platform’s interactions with a CRM start and stop depending on the lead status, contact properties, account type, and whether an opportunity is open. At most organizations, Marketing Automation platforms are set up by default to do one of two things. First, if Marketing Automation picks up a lead that is already in the CRM, it will update that lead. Second, if they’re a net new lead, Marketing Automation talks to the CRM to create a new lead that is then sent nurture emails and targeted with ads. Both or one of these things will happen until a Sales person moves the lead status from open to working contacted (or the equivalent lead status).
Enterprise Marketing Automation platforms (like Marketo, Marketing Cloud, and Eloqua) are built so that your team can run advertising and email nurture campaigns based on the entire customer lifecycle—not just a go or no-go signal on lead status. Not using its built-in functionality of these platforms is a significant lost opportunity. If your team’s decisions are based on a snapshot instead of the whole picture, you risk losing valuable insights and ultimately, revenue.
Marketing Automation Throughout the Customer Journey
Generally, we see companies understand and use Marketing Automation in terms of nurturing new leads. The opportunity exists to also use Marketing Automation to enable sales, renewals, and customer success.
Truly leveraging Marketing Automation means going well beyond knowing whether someone is a lead or a customer. Instead, it’s understanding which ad and email to deliver at each step of the sales process.
Why is this level of sophistication necessary? Here’s an example. Sending customers drip email campaigns for 25% off of a product they already bought isn’t helpful. Once someone is a customer, email nurture campaigns should shift to talk about new product features or case studies on how to get more value out of the product.
Email nurture campaigns should reflect the sales cycle from the top of the funnel to the bottom: From brand awareness, all the way to testimonials and use cases to help close deals. Then, the minute a deal closes, Marketing Automation should send onboarding emails. Finally, as the CRM indicates an organization is coming up for renewal, you should have nurture campaigns built to enable renewals four months out, helping Customer Success close every renewal for more than the previous year’s sale was worth.
Marketing Automation should warm clients for a renewal the same way most organizations use the platform to nurture a net new lead for a sale.
Marketing Automation to Support Renewals
Earlier, we discussed how the end goal for B2B SaaS companies isn’t just the renewal, but ensuring renewals close for a higher dollar value than the initial sale. We advocate that each renewal is treated as a sale. Marketing Automation should warm clients for a renewal the same way most organizations use the platform to nurture a net new lead for a sale.
If your organization has invested tens of thousands of dollars in Salesforce and a Marketing Automation platform; get your money’s worth. Nurture current customers to tell them about new features they’re not using or the benefits of upgrading from “Pro” to “Enterprise” tier.
Wrap Up
Interested in knowing more about how your B2B SaaS organization could use Marketing Automation to enable renewals and upsells? Reach out today: https://www.cloudkettle.com/contact-us/
