Author and entrepreneur Jonah Sachs once said, “Good marketers see consumers as complete human beings with all the dimensions real people have”. Through the methodology of closed-loop marketing, businesses are embracing this idea by using analytics to see all the dimensions and creating holistic campaigns to better meet the needs of their clients.
For modern marketing communications and web development agencies interested in “closing the loop,” here’s the skinny on closed-loop marketing and five tips on how to use this effective strategy to your advantage.
What is Closed-Loop Marketing?
Closed loop marketing consists of using analytic data and consumer insights to create more effective marketing campaigns, leading to a higher return on investment. With the end goal being to “close the loop,” marketers aim to record and analyze customer behavior from the initial touchpoint to the consumer actually going through the sales process.
Applying closed-loop marketing means marketers are able to trace all leads back to the original marketing campaign. But, perhaps best of all, these insights can inform your business of which campaigns lead to the greatest ROI. When applied successfully, closed-loop marketing pinpoints which company’s marketing efforts albeit strategies related to enhanced SEO practices, email campaigns, blog content or other content offers are actually coming to fruition.
Best Closed-Loop Practices
1. Utilize Data Management
Ultimately, the practice of closed-loop marketing will only work as well as the quality of the data gathered. That’s why your company needs to identify data that is accurate and usable. The “loop” begins before a customer even visits your company’s website.
Thus, resources like Google Analytics can indicate the percentage of web visitors who clicked through on your site through organic search results, providing data that is valuable in evaluating your online ad and SEO practices.
Additionally, resources like cloud call contact center software offer a comprehensive set of tools to design, test, utilize and assess self-service applications, offering measurable data on website visitors and delivering impeccable customer service tailored to each individual.
2. Score & Rank Leads
Lead scoring can be difficult, as the methodology must be ever-evolving based on how your company seeks out and develops leads. Depending on your company’s practices, in order to use closed-loop marketing effectively, you must create a scoring system to gauge how well sales leads attract intended customers. Then, rank the lead methods, giving preferential attention to the sales leads practices that rank the highest.
3. Nurture Lead Progress
A tragic mistake many advertisers make is neglecting to follow through after leads have been created. With that in mind, make sure to have a system in place that ensures leads don’t sit idle and die at this phase in the marketing loop process.
4. Enable Communication Between Sales & Marketing
Since the dawn of business, there has always been a disconnect between sales and marketing departments. But closed-loop marketing has evolved over time as a method of defeating this trend and attempts to get these two disparate teams to communicate more effectively throughout the entire marketing and sales nurturing process.
Whether your company needs to pair up a marketer with a salesperson or conduct weekly meetings with both departments in one room, communication is an essential aspect of designing marketing campaigns that will succeed.
5. Gauge the ROI for Your Marketing Campaign
At the end of the day, all company heads want to see their investments turn into positive ROI. When the CEO demands results, the CMO needs to be able to present more than just the number of hits on the website.
Case in point: They will want to know how many leads were generated, how many were nurtured, and how much revenue was closed because of the marketing campaign. With the resources and tools discussed above, you can measure the effectiveness of a campaign and more closely judge the ROI of a marketing investment.
Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose
It’s called “closed-loop marketing” for a reason. In particular, this practice brings the marketing process full circle, from the campaign design and initial lead contact to the closing of a sale, and it does so while including feedback from the sales team, a strategy that may not have worked as positively before implementation.
But today, sales and marketing departments can communicate more effectively, and companies now have the ability to obtain and analyze accurate data on their marketing campaigns. With a clearer understanding of closed-loop marketing and five best practices for using it, your company is now poised to see your customers in a new light to better design marketing campaigns.
