LeadMaster Australia Pty Ltd is a finalist for the Award of Top Business Solution as well as for Outstanding Project.

Russell King, CEO of LeadMaster says “This relationship provides LeadMaster with a partner who can customize solutions and workflow automation specifically designed to dramatically improve conversion rates on Internet inquiries for real estate. LeadMaster embraces many different types of partners from business consultants and call centers to ad/marketing agencies and value added resellers. LeadMaster provides a turnkey white label solution that immediately adds value.”

Michelle Taylor, President of HomeStar Broker Solutions added how thrilled HomeStar is to be using LeadMaster as the engine for their technology platform. “LeadMaster is recognized as an industry veteran in CRM lead management and marketing automation and by integrating our online conversion strategies and proprietary business processes with market-leading virtual call center technology and the LeadMaster engine, HomeStar will be able to offer unparalleled service and optimum conversion rates to its real estate clients.“

About HomeStar Broker Solutions Corp.

HomeStar Broker Solutions is a lead management company specializing in online conversions in real estate. By utilizing our on-demand services real estate companies can leverage state-of-the-art technology, our proprietary processes and an experienced, educated workforce for improving customer interactions and ROI on their lead generation efforts. Many real estate companies opt for HomeStar’s outsourced lead response, agent support and lead cultivation so that they have:

•     Dedicated front-line support to validate and respond to their property Internet inquiries to ensure that those with immediate needs get into the hands of an agent as quickly as possible and most importantly that the follow through occurs.

•     Dedicated back-end support to monitor agent activity and champion their lead conversion efforts.

•     Dedicated back end support to help educate, build interest and develop relationships with property seekers who have a purchase horizon greater than six months.

•     A centralized repository for all of their leads.

•     Visibility into their lead pipeline and comprehensive analytics to manage and measure results.

Alternately, HomeStar offers a non-outsourced option to real estate companies who prefer to manage their lead process in-house by providing them with the systems, processes and a powerful technology platform that is affordable and easy to use across all levels of their real estate operations.

HomeStar Broker Solutions Corp. is privately held and headquartered east of the metro Vancouver area in Canada and maintains a corporate website at http://www.homestarbrokersolutions.com.

About LeadMaster

According to Andy Brownell, Chief Marketing Officer at LeadMaster, “Marketing automation is just one of the many fantastic built-in features of LeadMaster. LeadMaster is a multi-function software platform for sales and marketing professionals. It provides functions like lead management, sales management, CRM, E-marketing and marketing automation. We believe it’s important to provide a complete solution for customers. Providing a CRM or lead management system without marketing automation tools is like selling a hamburger without a bun. The LeadMaster marketing automation tools don’t require plug-ins or add-ons and there are no additional fees.”

LeadMaster allows users to set up marketing automation activities through the use of a point-and-click interface. The marketing automation functions are easy to learn and use. Here’s a typical LeadMaster marketing automation after a prospect enters their information on a website or landing page:

• LeadMaster immediately sends the prospect a confirmation email.
• LeadMaster adds them to a pre-sales lead nurturing track.
• LeadMaster assigns the lead to a sales rep.
• LeadMaster monitors the lead to see if it is being worked and if not takes appropriate action.
  • For example – if the lead isn’t updated in 10 minutes LeadMaster sends a text message to the rep asking them to check their email for a new lead, if the lead hasn’t been updated in 3 hours LeadMaster sends an email to the sales manager.
• LeadMaster alerts the sales rep anytime the prospect either opens or clicks on a link in one of the emails sent from the system.
• LeadMaster creates a lead score by updating the contact’s marketing status and marketing activities based upon the prospect’s response to emails.
• When the prospect becomes a customer, LeadMaster changes their lead nurturing track from pre-sales to post-sales.
• All of this happens automatically.

LeadMaster marketing automation provides companies with the ability to automate their outbound marketing activities and track how customers respond to those messages so that the sales team can focus on the best opportunities.

Brownell explained, “Suppose you are a landscaping contractor and you offer a variety of products such as walkways, fencing, hot tubs etc. When you send a personalized email marketing brochure using LeadMaster and a prospect clicks on a link in the email for more information, LeadMaster will automatically add that prospect to a specific lead-nurturing track to provide them with additional information. That means the person who clicked on fencing will, over a pre-determined period of time, get a series of personalized emails to inform them about the fencing products. Likewise, the person who clicked on hot tubs will get hot tub information – automatically. As prospects open and click on the information those activities will be recorded and marked in their contact record– again automatically. This creates a lead score providing the sales team with the ability to see who is most interested and in purchasing products.”

LeadMaster provides companies with an easy way to improve their in-bound and out-bound marketing by finding and communicating with prospects most interested in purchasing products. LeadMaster improves marketing speed and agility by automating tasks to help increase efficiency and effectiveness.

The new marketing automation features are available immediately to all LeadMaster customers.

About LeadMaster

LeadMaster offers a multi-function cloud-computing software solution for sales and marketing professionals. Everything you need in one easy-to-use online web-based application. You can choose to implement an end-to-end Sales Lead Management CRM Software solution or select specific point solutions to satisfy your sales & marketing requirements.

Options include:

• Lead-Xpress - A revolutionary new way for sales reps to receive and update sales leads.
• E-Marketing - Drip marketing, lead nurturing, email tracking, open & clicks reporting.
• Lead-Xtreme - It’s like caller-ID for your website. Website visitor info flows into LeadMaster CRM in real-time.
• Call Center Solutions - Combining LeadMaster solutions provides a complete virtual call center system.
• Power-Call - Cloud phone switch integrated with LeadMaster provides an instant virtual call center.
• Voice-Leads - Convert text leads into speech, call the rep, read the lead & offer to connect with prospect.
• LeadMaster Voice - Click to call, power dialing and virtual phone switch integrated with LeadMaster CRM.

LeadMaster’s on-demand customizable SaaS solutions combine sales lead management software, lead tracking solutions, sales force automation tools (SFA), customer relationship management features (Sales CRM), LeadMaster Voice solutions and virtual call center solutions. This powerful web-based application has helped companies large and small from virtually every industry.

The LeadMaster sales lead management CRM solution is intuitive and easy to use, providing real-timelead capture, lead distribution, lead tracking, lead nurturing, custom reporting and email marketing. LeadMaster makes it easy to qualify and convert leads from virtually any source - landing page, email, call center, webinar, sales lead suppliers and more.

The LeadMaster sales lead management CRM product is straightforward and easy to learn yet has robust features like workflow automation, round-robin lead distribution, mobile access, CRM analytics and Outlook integration.

LeadMaster products and services are available through a global network of value-added resellers,consultants and system integrators.

LeadMaster has a new feature – the ability to import data to an opportunity custom form.  An opportunity custom form is just like any other custom form in that you can add whatever fields you want to the form.  It will be attached to any new / existing opportunities.

You can access this new feature when you are doing an opportunity load.  You’ll notice that your opportunity custom form fields are listed at the bottom of the list of system fields for Opportunities.

Just match up the fields from your spreadsheet with the system fields and the opportunity data flows right in.  You will need the appropriate administrative privileges to access this new feature.

Importing Data to a LeadMaster Opportunity Custom Form

You can logon from

• the LeadMaster home page by clicking the cell phone in the upper right hand corner
• or mobile.leadmaster.com
• or the white label logon http://mobile.crmtool.net

LeadMaster Mobile Interface

With the new LeadMaster Mobile App you can add contacts, opportunities, call backs, notes and access the LeadMaster Call Stats/Click Actions/Express Updates which will also activate workflow.

About LeadMaster / Lead Provider Integration

The LeadMaster Lead Provider Integration provides the ability for a lead provider to automate the process of submitting leads to LeadMaster.

The following information is maintained for each customer to which a lead provider will submit leads:

1. Campaign – Leads submitted by the lead provider can be associated with a specific campaign.

2. Zip code assignment – Leads submitted by the lead provider can be assigned to an account manager and / or partner rep based on the zip code associated with the lead (if included).

3. Use round robin for account manager assignment – leads submitted by the lead provider can be assigned to an account manager using the round robin queue.

4. Use round robin for partner rep assignment – leads submitted by the lead provider can be assigned to a partner rep using the round robin queue.

5. Custom Form – Leads submitted by the lead provider can include additional fields beyond the basic demographic fields that can be used to populate a custom form.

Note that leads are not assigned unless zip code assignment, account manager round robin assignment or partner rep round robin assignment are enabled.

You can send leads to LeadMaster via HTTP post, Email Parsing, Web Form to Custom Form Mapping and through the LeadMaster API.

Using the lead provider integration you can submit either via an HTTP post call using your development language of choice (javascript, vbscript, java, etc.) or via an email.  Both ways are discussed in detail in the LeadMaster Lead Provider Integration Guide

The results of the survey will be published here on the blog.  If you provide either marketing automation or demand generation services please take a moment to fill out the survey.

Here is the link: http://software-advice.polldaddy.com/s/marketing-automation-consultant-services-pricing.

Marketing automation is all about automating the process of informing prospects about what you have to offer and getting them closer to a purchase decision before handing them over to the sales team.  For example, here’s one way that LeadMaster does that.  LeadMaster has built in E-Marketing and Lead Nurturing functionality so you can easily send emails to prospects over an extended period of time.  Set it up once and forget about it.

LeadMaster keeps track of who opened your emails and can take action based upon that information.  Using LeadMaster’s marketing automation you can adjust lead nurturing tracks based upon emails that are opened and links that are clicked.  For example, suppose you sell outdoor products for the home: landscaping, hot tubs, storage, lighting, fences, solar products, irrigation etc.  I think you’d agree that each of those are unique and if someone is interested in a fence, that sending them information on a hot tub probably wouldn’t be of interest to them.

Using LeadMaster’s marketing automation you can add prospects to a specific lead nurturing track depending upon the link they chose to click on in your E-Marketing email – say solar products, you can then add that person to a lead nurturing track specifically tailored to solar products.

Ok, you’ve done a good job driving people to your website and getting them to fill out one of your web forms or landing pages.  You’ve generated a lead, but what’s happening with that lead?  As in the example above are you communicating with the prospect to inform them about your solution that is specifically targeted to what they are interest in? If not, then you need marketing automation.

If your lead management system is like most companies your sales team either receives leads via email and they get lost in Outlook or the leads flow into the CRM system and who knows what happens to them after that.

You’ve seen the surveys that say most leads are never followed up on.  There are a variety of reasons.

• They get lost in the shuffle.
• Reps are too busy.
• The leads aren’t qualified.
• The rep called and left a message and they didn’t hear back from them.
• They weren’t ready to send a purchase order today.
• Too busy trolling for leads on facebook.
• The list goes on and on.

I saw a cartoon on the Sales Lead Management Association website that had the boss asking about a lead for Fred Flintstone.  That’s what happens when leads flow directly into the sales rep’s CRM system without some form of qualification.  Whether the leads are going to be marketing qualified, inside sales qualified or sales team qualified, using LeadMaster as your marketing automation system can help you manage those leads.

Here are some examples:

• The manager responsible for lead qualification wants internet leads followed up within 30 minutes.  Use LeadMaster’s task management create a task so that if the lead status doesn’t change within 30 minutes an alert is sent to the sales manager.
• If the lead isn’t followed up in 60 minutes the lead can be automatically reassigned to another rep.  An alert is automatically sent to the rep who is getting the reassigned lead via a text message or email.
• Reports can be generated to show the average time each rep takes to respond to a lead, the leads processed per day, how many were qualified, how many appointments were set etc.
• There are many options for automating the qualification process in LeadMaster.

Beyond managing the qualification process LeadMaster helps manage the lead all the way through the sales process.

Here are some examples:

• The sales manager wants to know if sales progress has stalled.  If each step in the sales cycle takes 1 week and the sale hasn’t progressed in two weeks send an email to sales rep & sales manager.
• The sales manager wants to know the size of the opportunity within two weeks of a new lead coming in.  Create a task so that if the lead value hasn’t been entered within two weeks of assignment then send an email to the sales manager and cc: the rep.
• The sales manager wants inside sales to talk with a customer if a deal hasn’t closed in 90 days.  Create a task so that if a lead reaches 90 days and hasn’t closed a notice is sent to inside sales and the sales manager.
• The sales manager is having a hard time keeping track of sales leads.  Many leads have the lead status ‘could not reach’ for months.  It appears the rep tried to reach them a couple of times and then forgot about them.  Create a task so that whenever a new lead is assigned if lead status = ‘could not reach’ an email is sent to the rep every couple of days with a reminder to call that prospect until 14 days later when it is reassigned to inside sales.

If you’re thinking about marketing automation and you need help convincing your boss check out the articles on the Software Advice marketing automation website.

Reporting on Opened Emails, Links that were Clicked etc.

But how do you track emails that haven’t been opened?  You could click on the contact link in each record and examine the email history for each contact, but if you’ve got a large list it wouldn’t be very efficient.  To automate the process requires a couple of straightforward steps.

First mark all the records indicating they haven’t opened an email.  The easiest way to do this is to search for the records you want to track and use the option menu to update records.  For this example I’m using the marketing mix field, but any field that can be updated using ‘Update Records’ will work.

Update Records Initially with a Status of 'Has not opened Email'

Next, you’ll want to create a workflow condition that says – if someone opens an email and they have a mark on their record that says they haven’t opened an email – then mark it that they have opened the email.

This will take a couple of steps.  First, create the workflow by clicking the ‘Add Workflow Process’.

Workflow Setup - Check to see if they've opened an email

Second, create the condition in workflow that checks to see if they opened an email.

Workflow Condition

Now you’ll want to mark the record saying they have opened an email.  Again you’ll use workflow and ‘update records’.

Update the record that it was opened using workflow 'Update Record'

Now you are ready to send your email campaign.  After sending you can search on the marketing mix to see which records equal ‘Has Not Opened.

Search on Marketing Mix to Find Records that Have Not Opened the Email

From here you can add them to a lead nurturing track, assign them to inside sales for follow-up, send them a direct mail piece etc.

Email marketing is simply sending email with your marketing message. The email message could go to one person or to a million people. It could be plain text or it could be an HTML email with links, images and video. Email marketing is typically sent to your customers, your prospects or to an email list that you’ve purchased in the hopes of getting new customers. Over the last 5 years email marketing has proven to be one of the most cost effective marketing methods. According to Wikipedia U.S. companies spent $1.51 billion on email marketing in 2011 and it will grow to $2.468 billion by 2016. Email marketing is not without challenges. According to a recent survey less than 50% of email newsletters are opened. Spam filters grab a significant portion of email marketing, estimates range from 10-20%. Before starting an email marketing campaign you should familiarize yourself with the CAN-SPAM law (http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/15C103.txt). For email marketing to be effective the recipients should have opted-in to receiving messages, the message should be relevant to the recipients and the content should be high quality. This will insure a positive reception to your email marketing campaign.

Lead nurturing is a step up from email marketing. Lead nurturing sends a series of emails at predetermined intervals. The goal of lead nurturing is to build a relationship with a prospect using electronic mail. The concept is that by staying in touch with your prospect while they are in the information gathering stage of making a purchase decision you will get their business when it’s time for them to purchase something. The idea came about because sales reps typically don’t follow up on sales leads until they the prospect is ready to buy. So rather than have those leads go stale, marketing was tasked with staying in touch with prospects until they were closer to making a purchase decision. According to Forrester Research, companies that excel at lead nurturing are able to generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost per lead. A lead nurturing track might have 1 email per year or it might have several emails per day (I’m on a few of those). To be effective lead nurturing should be a targeted message with exactly the information the prospect is searching for and it must be high quality content. Lead nurturing emails should not be sent so frequently that they annoy the recipient.

Marketing automation encompasses email marketing, lead nurturing and scheduling human communication that moves sales leads from the first contact to the completed sale by using software that tracks an individual prospect’s interests and responds accordingly.  For example, what web pages did they visit, what links did they click, what emails did they open, what white papers did they download, etc. and then adds that prospect to the appropriate lead nurturing track and schedules relevant follow-up phone calls.  The follow-up phone calls can be scheduled either at the prospects request, at milestones (e.g. after a webinar) or automatically at regularly scheduled intervals.  Marketing automation is one of the best ways to make the most of your sales leads and LeadMaster’s marketing automation is point and click easy.

LeadMaster has all three solutions; email marketing, lead nurturing and marketing automation. Sign up for a test drive and let a LeadMaster consultant show you just how easy and cost effective these marketing tools can be.

For more information on Marketing Automation check out the article by Lauren Carlson at Software Advice.