Given the speed at which marketing methods are changing and evolving — especially when it comes to digital — it’s no surprise that campaigns need thoughtful logic to drive them. But what’s the secret to a successful lead nurturing campaign?
Strategy is key, and if Barn2Door’s marketing were in the passenger seat, data would be in the driver’s. For demand manager Cade Midyett, a successful lead nurturing campaign is all about performance and the decisions his team makes in response along the way. By carefully tracking how effectively a campaign is running, Midyett is able to determine which efforts are getting significant enough traction for them to move on in the process. “Having real data to make those decisions is a game changer,” he said.
Even when a campaign’s sole purpose isn’t lead-focused, data is vital in tracking effectiveness to potentially inform future campaigns. Midyett explained that when Barn2Door’s lead scoring system revealed that prospects were engaging with video content, the team made it a point to incorporate videos into other contexts — like email — to provide leads with more opportunities for engagement.
Built In Seattle sat down with Midyett to learn more about Barn2Door’s data-driven methods and how he keeps up with marketing trends to optimize the direction of future lead nurturing campaigns.
What’s the secret to a successful lead nurturing campaign?
At Barn2Door, the key to making our lead nurturing campaigns a success has been an automated lead scoring system. We’re very performance-driven when it comes to our marketing, so even if a campaign’s goal isn’t as clear-cut as generating new leads, it’s important that we have a way of tracking effectiveness. We have an automatic point system set up through HubSpot which assigns our leads a score depending on the actions they take — for example, visiting a certain page on our website. Based on that lead score, we can determine the quality of a lead and when we would want to pass them off to our sales team. This way, we can easily decide if — and which — campaigns are nurturing our leads, including measuring the level of engagement with our content. Scoring activities and assigning points gives us the opportunity to measure outcomes and determine what actually works.
We actually know what content successfully nurtures our leads, enabling us to be both more efficient and more effective.”
How has this strategy improved the success or efficacy of your campaigns?
Our lead scoring system provides a quick and easy way to analyze campaigns; we identify the most effective ones and find opportunities to improve and create new campaigns based on the results. We can easily cut out content that leads aren’t engaging with and further boost content that is driving qualified leads. For example, we set up lead scoring criteria to attribute points to prospects who visited our site and watched 90 percent or more of key videos highlighting how our software works. These leads converted at high levels, so we increased opportunities for leads to engage with the videos by adding them to email campaigns, among other things.
Conversely, we might expect high engagement with a new blog post or landing page sent to leads via a nurture campaign. If leads’ scores did not increase as expected, we can omit that content from future campaigns. Having real data to make those decisions is a game changer. Instead of guessing, we actually know what content successfully nurtures our leads, enabling us to be both more efficient and more effective.
With digital marketing evolving so rapidly, how do you stay on top of best practices and continue optimizing your approach?
Digital marketing is a rapidly shifting landscape. On a near-daily basis, marketing platforms are updating their policies or introducing new ad formats — it’s a lot to keep up with. Our team makes a consistent effort to keep up with the latest digital marketing policies, news and tactics. We like to try things that are on the cutting edge, such as new ad formats or tactics shared by other marketers. Thankfully, there are tons of great resources out there covering digital marketing news.
On a personal note, I actively listen to podcasts on the topic during my commute to and from the office. Podcasts like Today in Digital Marketing are short and chock-full of great information. I also read digital marketing blog posts and newsletters each morning to keep up with what’s going on across various platforms.
