LeadMD Case Study
Bersin & Associates Fixing the Holes
Bersin & Associates empowers HR and learning professionals to drive business results through world-class research and consulting. The company's WhatWorks速 Membership
Program
gives
human
resources, learning and business leaders the insights, professional development, and networking they need to drive alignment across their organizations and to deliver sound and successful people management solutions. LeadMD helped them build a better funnel.
LeadMD Identifies the Problem and Reacts Quickly to Make a Change Summary Bersin & Associates empowers HR and learning professionals to drive business results through world-class research and consulting. The company's WhatWorks® Membership Program gives human resources, learning and business leaders the insights, professional development, and networking they need to drive alignment across their organizations and to deliver sound and successful people management solutions. More than 5,000 organizations around the world have used Bersin & Associates research and consulting to guide their learning and talent strategies and solutions. More than 50 percent of the Fortune 100 are currently Bersin & Associates clients.
"Bersin chose LeadMD because of the company’s expertise in lead Bersin knew that to continue their trajectory of 30% CAGR in scoring programs, as revenue, they needed to implement a marketing automation (MA) platform that would systematically drive high quality well as their strength leads into the business. The company purchased the with both the Marketo Marketo software to get the marketing automation program underway. and Salesforce The Challenge platforms. " Marketing automation technology can be overwhelming, counter intuitive, and, on the whole, not very automated. For Bersin, the challenge came with developing a lead scoring process, which is an integral part of a marketing automation campaign. The marketing department needed a transparent, efficient and reliable way to rate leads. Their current process, although well thought out, did not account for the lifecycle nature of lead interest, which is common to most organizations that have implemented lead scoring. In the typical lead scoring model, companies score leads in accordance with their demographic profile and couple that information with behaviors that indicate interest. Once Bersin’s leads reached a qualification point they were passed to sales and that’s where the former process ended. Furthermore, Bersin needed this process to be intuitive for both the marketing and sales departments, so there was no confusion as to where leads resided in the funnel.
Because Bersin also used Salesforce.com, they required a better integration between the two platforms, so they could maximize both in the lead scoring process. Paula Reinman, SVP of marketing for Bersin, noticed that there was a disconnect in the lead scoring and nurturing system, which needed to be fixed in order to maximize their marketing automation investment. “We required a dynamic and systematic way for sales to know who were the top prospects to call,” said Reinman. “While we knew how to use Marketo and our marketing team was doing a great job bringing in leads, we were struggling with the complexity of scoring those leads effectively and handing them off to sales in a way that they can work them most efficiently.”
The Solution Reinman decided that bringing in a marketing automation expert that specialized in the Marketo platform could help the company resolve their lead scoring issue. Bersin chose LeadMD because of the company’s expertise in lead scoring programs, as well as their strength with both the Marketo and Salesforce platforms. LeadMD went to work by first figuring out where the holes in the program were. They sat down with executives from the marketing and sales departments to learn what they needed in order for lead scoring to fit in their workflow. LeadMD challenged Bersin to think further in terms of what happens to leads once they interact with sales and determine a score based on that sales interaction. After a full-day, on-site evaluation, LeadMD created a “working process” that was agreed to by departments. They bridged the gap and got everyone on the same page with workflow. LeadMD then taught everyone using the system how to work with Marketo to maximize lead scores and nurturing. During the evaluation, the company also identified a hole in Bersin’s funnel that was allowing leads from the Web to bypass lead scoring, and lost all prior lead activity. By simply identifying the hole, LeadMD was able to capture the lead stream and put it back into the funnel for nurturing. LeadMD then helped them define various success paths, translate those paths into the Marketo platform, and measure results.
"LeadMD simplified a very complex technology for us, making our lead scoring process seamless and easy to understand."
Bersin now utilizes a dashboard with key lead reports that is shared throughout the company. This gives a level of transparency that was missing prior to working with LeadMD. Reinman was impressed. “LeadMD simplified a very complex technology for us, making our lead scoring process seamless and easy to understand. LeadMD did a great job of identifying our issues and applying strong technical and project management skills to help us improve our marketing automation. I knew it was working very quickly after the new implementation when our leads started being rated and scored in a way that was visible to, and made sense for, everyone. That wasn’t happening before.” Results: + Bersin is currently seeing a 30 percent increase in leads in its monthly ‘qualified leads’ report and an across the board increase in accuracy around lead source attribution. + An easy-to-follow metrics system, which supports both behavioral and demographic lead scores reinforced by data validation requirements. This ensures completeness of record before being passed to sales. + Converting 18 percent more leads into complimentary registration– the desired outcome which allows Bersin to build value in their on-demand research memberships
About Bersin & Associates Bersin & Associates helps companies get smart fast, so they can make better business decisions and save time in implementing mission-critical programs. HR professionals can use our insights and tools to benchmark their current strategies, identify strengths and gaps, and develop the solutions that build successful organizations. More than 5,000 organizations around the world have used Bersin & Associates research and consulting to guide their learning and talent strategies and solutions. More than 50 percent of the Fortune 100 currently are Bersin & Associates clients. www.bersin.com
About LeadMD LeadMD is a conversational marketing services firm specializing on organic lead generation. Headquartered in Phoenix, LeadMD helps companies fix their funnel by leveraging cutting edge sales and marketing technology to produce quantifiable revenue based results www.LeadMD.com.