Marketo Lead Nurture - avenues for adding new leads

[avaroglu]

I've got a Welcome Series lead nurture program set up in Marketo and the main way we add leads to the program is when someone fills out a form whether that is a contact us form (as long as they don't have an opp created, we wait 45 days and then add them to the stream) OR if they fill out a content form. However, this year we have not been gating our content, and therefore the quantity of leads entering our nurture series has been low. Are there any other ways besides form fills that folks use to enter leads into a welcome nurture? Looking for ideas - thanks!!

[dewey12025]

Instead of relying solely on form fills, consider using additional behavioral triggers based on user activity. For example, if a lead visits certain key pages on your website, such as pricing or product information pages, multiple times, it could automatically trigger their addition to the nurture program.

Another great option would be to build out a Lead Lifecycle in Marketo. This would allow you to trigger based on where your records are in the sales cycle. 

[avaroglu]

Thanks for this suggestion! And if I were to set up an entry criteria for web page visits (specific web pages, multiple times) would that then include only known Marketo leads - or do I need to set up a filter to ensure only people who have opted into receiving our emails would be entered? Thanks!

[Darshil_Shah1]

Well, the trigger (or filter if you are used Visited Web Page filter instead of the real time Visits Webpage trigger to add people to the nurture) would let anyone who visits (or has visited) the pages you mention in the trigger/filter. It'd not any additionaly check regarding their emailability, elibility for nurture, etc. You'd need to add those as filters to ensure only the right people who match the nurture entry criteria as per your requirment are added to the nurture.

[jasonh-sxm]

Going along with what @dewey12025 was saying...there are a number of great tutorials on building a lead lifecycle model, including:

• https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/marketo-learn/tutorials/lead-and-data-management/lead-lif...
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1Sy27-QyFo
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffbOae4LxHw
• https://www.marketingrockstarguides.com/marketo-consulting/lead-lifecycle-design-and-implementation/

Tracking behavior/activity is definitely a great way to figure out who is engaging with content (emails, webinars, downloadable content, website pages, etc.) related to your nurture.

[Alex_Torres]

Hey @avaroglu , 

Your approach for the welcome Journey it's the most commond behavior taken in consideration at the time of adding a lead into a stream but as @dewey12025  and @jasonh-sxm said, there are plenty of options based on behavior to add a lead into a stream such as a vistied web page, an interaction with an email, or even an offline interaction if you are integration those in Marketo!

My two cents on this are:

• If you are thinking about just the 'Welcome Journey' so it triggers when a lead enters in the Database in Marketo, the sources to listen in the triggers could be or 'Person is Created' and then use transition rules or filters to route the leads to their proper stream  based in interest parameters or demographics. (you wont be able to do any other thing because you do not have the person in the DDBB yet (maybe you should check your lead ingeestion sources to be aware all the leads are entering the program)
  
  
• if you are thinking about any other type of lead nurturing you can think about many different ways to build it, for example:
  • Based in interest: attending to their web pages visited or interacted emails or maybe if you have one, their preferences selected in The Preference Center of your web. Focused in content driving to final conversion.
  • Based in Demographics: attending to data in the key fields whre you store the interests of your leads. Focused in content driving to final conversion

Maybe if you are struggling with the amount of leads entering your database you could think also in 2 ways to increase new leads:

1st to send to your ads network of Facebook, linkedin or google the an audience based in the leads in certain stage of your lifecycle
2nd you can do a database check and recycle old leads that are not intereacting and sending them to this Welcome Nurture as recycled leads in a special stream with differenced content for leads who already know you but didn't interacted with your company in a certain time

Hope it brings you light!!

[Darshil_Shah1]

Taking a step back, @avaroglu, is there any solid reason you made the content ungated? IMO, it's usually a good practice to keep certain high-performing offers (those that are known to drive engagement and acquire high-quality new people) gated. This allows you to trade the offer in exchange for key information from the people, which you can later use to market to them effectively. Coming to your existing issue of not being able to trigger people to the flow to add to the nurture, this is pretty simple, in my opinion; you could use a smart list with nurture eligibility criteria in it; this could include demographic, behavioral, lifecycle stage, buying interest, persona, etc. You could filter out people not already receiving the nurture and then add these people to the nurture program using the "Add to Engagement Program" flow step in a traffic campaign that is responsible for adding people to the Engagement program if they meet the criteria.

Also, in general, most Marketo users prefer using external campaigns with engagement program-related flow steps (Add to Engagement Program, Change Engagement Program Stream, etc., for adding and managing people in the nurture program) as opposed to using the Transition logic as the former is much more versatile, flexible, allows for easy troubleshooting, and of course, doesn't need a trigger activity, unlike the Transition rules.

Hope this is helpful. Please let us know if you have questions. 🙂