For the marketing department, their world can solely revolve around leads like it’s a god. Well, if you are a founder who is looking to fast-track the company’s revenue generation, then leads can give you that instant and seemingly tangible hold on that money that you want to make. However, leads are mostly just that, leads – they do not get converted all the time, they do not guarantee sales, and definitely are not the end-all towards achieving your goals. In order to succeed, leads have to be treated for what they really are and that is, that there are real human beings behind these leads who seek a positive overall customer experience. And when you are able to help them solve a problem and give them value, then that lead can get converted into a sale, and in the long run, a customer who will keep coming back for more. In this podcast, learn how leads can become conversions for real.
Lauren Vaccarello is the VP of Customer Engagement at Box, a content management company. Lauren is a business leader who has led high-performing marketing teams and helped accelerate revenue growth. Her background pertains to demand generation and she has been in the marketing industry for 15 years. Previously, Lauren held executive leadership positions at AdRoll and Salesforce. A member of Google’s Tech Advisory Council, she is also a sought-after speaker at prestigious industry events like South by Southwest, eMetrics, and ClickZ. Lauren has co-authored two highly-esteemed books, Complete B2B Online Marketing and The Retargeting Playbook. It was in 2014 when she was named one of the Influential Women in Business by San Francisco Times.
In this Episode:
- How Lauren is an old-school marketer for 15 years now and currently working with Box, content management company as VP for Customer Engagement
- How leads are essential to a growing business but is not the end all for marketing
- How some companies tend to focus on lead generation activities without first establishing if that is what is really needed
- More than lead gen, building your brand and building trust with potential clients could be key
- How to see beyond the lead and more deeply into the persons behind it – nurturing them and giving them value
- How to use leads as a starting point towards that positive overall customer experience
- How leads can give you that sugar rush but is actually just the icing on the cake
- How to focus by defining your target audience first before your leads
- How quality of leads wins over mere quantity especially in terms of conversion
- How great marketers go beyond just focusing on leads
- How to move a lead into becoming a customer, then an advocate with lots of referrals
- How positive customer experience is important after a sale has been closed
- How to build lifetime customer value at the right stage of your company growth
- How CLTV or Customer Lifetime Value is slowly getting accepted in relation to creating better customer experiences
- The importance of keeping to what you promise to deliver to maintain that long-term relationship with customers
- Traits to look for in the marketing person to hire such as adaptability, creativity, and customer empathy