Link4LEAD

SAI is a solution for capturing and developing leads to maturity. It's a full-Web content solution that showcases your core competencies so your prospects commit. One step at a time. SAI allows prospects to evaluate themselves on a subject matter associated with your offering. Quickly, they implicitly find out areas for improvement where your offering can contribute significantly.

Benefits:

• You get involved in smart conversations where prospects are prompted to elicit their areas for improvement.
• Leads>Conversations>Opportunities conversion rates are improved by an order of magnitude (x10).

Assess what your lead generation is worth!

For your prospects: valuable learning content

You provide your targeted prospects with valuable learning content that includes:

• An on-line assessment;
• A results page allowing them to benchmark themselves against your best practices;
• a detailed and personalized diagnostic report, specifying areas for improvement where to focus their attention.

For you, as a brand/provider

1. Our team of experts helps you capture and articulate your sales intelligence.
   During a preliminary workshop, we will analyze your offering to identify its benefits and differentiators, and leverage your expertise. This workshop enables us to develop and craft your Smart Audit Interactif (SAI).
2. Once validated, your SAI is spread through all your communication channels: email, Web sites, social networking sites… and is available in two different modes: landing page, embedded mode…
3. When interested in your content, your targeted prospects assess their own situation.
   You get new leads.
   As soon as you get a new lead, you receive an email with a score indicating the level of engagement of your prospect when completing the evaluation.
   In addition, without any contact, you have now a good idea with regard to your prospect’s areas for improvement and the themes you should focus on during your initial conversation.
4. You track and measure the results of your campaigns thanks to our back office capabilities.
   In particular, you can monitor conversion rates over time against a variety of dimensions including the type of channel used, and assess in real time the effectiveness of your SAI. This enables you to identify your offering's capabilities that hit the mark and those that need to be revised to become more compelling.
   Your dashboards are your best allies for improving your message.

SAI is mainly suited to B2B companies of all sizes and across all sectors. B2C companies which need to clarify their offering and create a climate of trust with their prospects before they contact them can also benefit from SAI.

On average, our advertisers broadcast their SAI(s) over a period of 12 months using different message angles to raise interest in their target audiences. In addition, prospects generally consult an SAI multiple times, so the SAI must be easy for them to access so that they can re-evaluate their needs at a later date and develop to maturity.

The SAI allows you to generate barometers regarding your lead panel. These barometers are ideal for developing your relationship with your prospects, as they allow them to compare themselves to their peers on the theme of the SAI.

During a preliminary workshop, we will leverage your expertise and capture your knowledge to develop and craft your messages. At the end of the workshop, we should be equipped with all the raw material required to build the initial kits for your prospects, in the format of Smart Audit Interactif (SAI). The methodology we use to achieve these results is pretty unique. It is based on 4 steps:

1. Analyzing your challenges and understanding your offering. During this step, we also make sure that we clearly understand who your targeted audience is in terms of job title and function within one of more vertical(s).
2. Determining the benefits and differentiators of your offering, from your targeted audience’s perspective.
3. Developing and crafting one SAI for each target.
4. Testing the SAI and making changes if and when required.

Yes! The SAI facilitates the initial contact and the quality of the relationship between the advertiser and its target audience. It helps generate traffic. On the Internet, the more you spread the message about your expertise, the more traffic you will receive. SAI converts your Web traffic into qualified leads, so a well-defined Web traffic strategy (e-mails, search engine optimization, affiliations, etc.) is essential. The aim of the SAI is to clarify and summarize your offering, not to create it. The clearer your offering, the more useful and effective your SAI will be for your prospects.

Around three weeks from your go-ahead to upload of the SAI. 48 hours once the content is created.

Of course. The SAI is available in 7 languages (English, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese). We will need an extra 72 hours for any other language.

Raising interest means encouraging the target audience to look at an SAI and complete the questionnaire. To achieve this, we combine text on different message angles with graphic design elements for all your communication channels (e-mails, Web site, banner, AdWords, etc.). The tagline usually takes the form of a question to your target audience on a subject relating to your offering (for an operational marketing business, for example, the tagline might be: "Are your Web marketing activities profitable?" or "Take 3 minutes to find out how you can improve your Web marketing strategy"). The tagline can also be a commercial promise ("Free personalized assessment in 3 minutes") with an invitation to click so that your target audience understands that the image is clickable.

See the Traffic Generation section

In several ways:

1.    An SAI questionnaire is an evaluation questionnaire that gives prospects a real-time analysis of their responses with reference to your core competencies. Their responses act as key indicators which you can use to analyze their needs and establish initial contact.
2.    The SAI questionnaire contains different kinds of information (comments, weighting, etc.). The Link4LEAD analysis engine automatically generates prospects’ key indicators and personalized assessment on the results page.
3.    The questions are of a great value for prospects. The result allows them to compare themselves to their peers and be enriched by the advertiser’s expertise. The SAI showcases your expertise while reinforcing your credibility. It helps you establish a relationship of trust.

For instance:

We won't say > How many leads do you generate each month?

a.    less than 10
b.    between 10 and 50
c.    more than 50

But > What do you think about the QUANTITY of sales opportunities you are generating?

a.    We have all the leads we need!
b.    It varies depending on our offering and the time of year
c.    It's pretty random; we do not have a structured lead generation process
d.    We're better at generating interest and Web traffic than genuine leads

Prospects know that in answering the first question they will be giving the advertiser information about themselves that they may not wish to divulge at this stage. But the second question and associated answers are extremely useful for prospects, as they can use them to compare their own situation to similar instances their peers may face. They also showcase the advertiser’s expertise while reinforcing its credibility.

During a preliminary workshop, we will leverage your expertise and capture your knowledge to develop and craft your messages. At the end of the workshop, we should be equipped with all the raw material required to build the initial kits for your prospects, in the format of Smart Audit Interactif (SAI). The methodology we use to achieve these results is pretty unique. It is based on 4 steps:

1. Analyzing your challenges and understanding your offering. During this step, we also make sure that we clearly understand who your targeted audience is in terms of job title and function within one of more vertical(s).
2. Determining the benefits and differentiators of your offering, from your targeted audience’s perspective.
3. Developing and crafting one SAI for each target.
4. Testing the SAI and making changes if and when required.

The evaluation:

1. creates the conditions for a qualified dialogue;
2. facilitates the decision-making process and allows advertisers to establish a progress plan. The score tells prospects where they are situated with regard to an issue. The areas for improvement are extremely useful for development of the commercial action plan. Sales representatives can use these indicators as an aid to discussion and a tool for conducting smart conversations with prospects.
Every sales representative will tell you that it usually takes time to create the conditions for a qualified dialogue. An SAI helps you shorten the sales cycle.

Each element of the questionnaire (questions, answers, etc.) is assigned a weight.
For instance, let's take the question "What do you think about the QUANTITY of leads you are generating?". It is clear that "We're better at generating interest and Web traffic than genuine leads" is not as good as "We have all the leads we need."

These weightings showcase the advertiser’s expertise on the subject at hand. They also allow a prospect’s responses to be interpreted automatically and indicators such as scores, strong points, weak points and areas for improvement to be calculated.

These weightings are obtained using an analysis engine developed by Link4LEAD on the basis of a number of recognized techniques (see Thomas Saaty, Multicriteria Decision Making - The Analytic Hierarchy Process). This tool permits effective brainstorming on a subject and produces weightings by comparing the different elements together. For the advertiser, this exercise is quite short but a good learning experience.

Let’s take a very simple example. Paul takes an exam. He gets a mark of 11/20 in math (math has a weighting of 600%) and a mark of 9/20 in the other subjects (weighted at 200%). Math is the subject where Paul got the best mark. Therefore math is his strong point and the other subjects his weak points. Math is also his main area for improvement: he will be more likely to pass his exam if he gets a better mark in math than if he gets a better mark in the other subjects (since math has a weighting of 600%). In conclusion, Paul needs to focus on math when studying for his resit.

Let’s look at the above example again. Here it is quite obvious that math is both Paul’s strong point and his area for improvement. Depending on how your SAI is weighted (in Paul's case the results have a weighting of either 600% or 200%, depending on the importance of the subject), it is perfectly possible for a strong point to also be an area for improvement, and this can be explained to prospects. Another example: the tennis player Ivan Lendl had a great drive and a very weak backhand. Thus his drive was his strong point and his backhand shot his weak point. In view of his playing style (his weighting), his strategy was to improve his drive rather than his backhand and to work on avoiding backhand shots. His drive became his main area for improvement. These examples are extreme. In most cases, the weak point will be the “natural” area for improvement. But this will not always be the case.

Yes. The default fields are the most frequently used. We recommend that you are not too greedy for information about your prospects, as we always choose to leave more or less information on the Internet. Each additional field will reduce uptake and deter some prospects altogether.

Yes. SAI can be configured to ask for identification details at various stages: when prospects click on the tagline, when they validate the evaluation (i.e. before the results page) or when they request their detailed diagnosis. These options are very useful in “pull” mode (when leads are anonymous). In “push” mode (e-mails, newsletter, etc.), it is possible to configure the SAI Web link (URL) to identify prospects as soon as they click on the tagline. There is no need to request contact details, just to confirm some information, and at least their e-mail address.

The more information you request, the more cautious your prospect will be. There is a risk of decreasing the conversion rate. All of us leave information on the Internet whether we choose to or not. Besides, when a prospect requests a diagnosis, Web links are provided to the advertiser, enabling IT to search for additional information about the prospect on Google, Viadeo or LinkedIn.

Everything that helps make your marketing program more effective and profitable!
1.    All the texts 
2.    The style sheet
3.    The content of the results page
4.    The process (identification before completing the evaluation, before getting access to the results page, etc.)
5.    The detailed diagnosis
6.    The e-mails (e-mails sent to prospects when they request their detailed diagnosis, emails sent to advertisers)
7.    The follow-up emails

By default, a prospect requesting a detailed diagnosis receives an e-mail giving a Web link to the diagnosis. Working in real time can be highly profitable provided that you process and contact your leads within 48 hours. Although taking care of your leads, devoting time to them, analyzing their needs and working step-by-step may appear to be less productive, it is in reality the more effective approach. Indeed, if your prospect is not yet a client, taking the time to build a genuine relationship will be decisive in making your business more effective.

This e-mail includes:
1.    The name of the offering
2.    A lead scoring, calculated from the results of the evaluation and the time spent on the questionnaire and the results page.
3.    The campaign ID and the referrer (where the click came from)
4.    The lead's contact details
5.    The detailed diagnosis available on-line
6.    Web links to Google, Viadeo and LinkedIn for further information about the lead

Yes, all of them.

Yes. Our certified concept developers/writers write the SAI contents for you.

Our background in marketing and the Internet, our specialization in lead generation and our experience with clients constantly reinforce our expertise in Web marketing, effective strategies and tactics. We can thus help you with the marketing value chain.

Yes. For sales representatives, we run training workshops in groups of six or eight. The aim of these workshops is to train reps on the best way to contact an SAI lead by comparing their experiences and points of view on the basis of real cases and practical exercises. For telesales agents, we can on request supply follow-up scripts tailored to the offering.

There are three main communication strategies:

1.    The “pull” strategy: the advertiser incorporates the SAI tagline into its own or its partners’ Web site, blogs, social networking sites, etc. 2.    The “push” strategy: the advertiser uses its SAI in e-mail campaigns, commercial e-mails, e-mail signatures, etc. The SAI URL can be configured so as to avoid your target having to re-enter data you already have. 
3.    The “sales” strategy: sales representatives, telesales agents, and pre-sales consultants can use the SAI as a sales tool to reinforce the credibility of the advertiser’s offering and make the initial contact easier.

The more widely an offering is distributed, the more successful it will be. But distribution doesn’t mean burst advertising. Keep in mind that your SAI has a specific target audience and that your distribution strategy must focus on this target audience. Find out more...

First you need:

1.    A genuine offering
2.    A distribution strategy using multiple communication channels.
3.    A clearly defined media plan

You also need:

1.   A real lead management process along with a CRM
2.   A training program for telesales agents and sales representatives.

Don’t lose sight of the fact that a lead is expensive. Depending on business sector, a lead can cost between €50 and €1000, and sometimes much more. On average, a B2B lead costs more than €500, so leads must be handled with care.

Yes. The SAI can be easily incorporated into your Web site.

By default, the advertiser and the prospect receive the detailed diagnosis by e-mail. The prospect receives a web link to a PDF dowload of the detailed diagnosis.
We can configure and personalize the e-mails according to your needs.

We hold workshops with several objectives:
1.    Get a member of the sales team involved in the creation of the questionnaire.
2.    Explain the SAI process and the kind of leads that will be generated.
3.    Teach representatives to read the diagnosis and indicators.
4.    Do practical exercises, improvised initially and then with a script, in:

• calling a prospect to establish an initial contact or to make an appointment.
• simulating a meeting using the diagnosis as an aid or to facilitate the commercial relationship.

With care! A lead is expensive. SAI leads are of a high quality (90 proven meetings for every 100 Link4LEAD leads).
When you receive an SAI e-mail, we recommend that you:

1.   Analyze the diagnosis very carefully.
2.   Search the Internet (using the Web links provided) for further useful information about your prospect: company, position, professional networks, etc.
3.   Call your prospect within 48 hours (not more) to talk about his or her SAI experience and begin the commercial relationship and/or involve him or her in a Web marketing scenario, provide further content, etc.

The Link4LEAD platform allows the advertiser to create and configure nurturing e-mails that can be customized to the different lead segments (contacts who clicked on the tagline, contacts who validated the questionnaire and contacts who requested a diagnosis). This function is a particularly useful way to follow up on your prospects or inform them that other content, such as the barometer, is at their disposal.

SAI generates high-qualified leads. The experience of our clients shows that when these leads are properly handled, 90 % will agree to enter into contact with you. This figure rises if:
1.    The advertiser's offering is clear.
2.    Its distribution strategy is well defined.
3.    The advertiser perseveres.

The Link4LEAD platform allows you to track and evaluate your campaign results and to export, segment and follow up on your leads.
The SAI allows you to tell a story to your leads over the long term and to create other content on the basis of the SAI (barometer, white book, etc.).

Around 3 minutes: 40 times more than the average time spent on a Web site. The e-mail you receive tells you the time each lead spent to complete the evaluation, giving you an indication of how interested and reliable the prospect is.

Around 1 minute.

Creation of an SAI questionnaire is charged at a fixed price. When the questionnaire is ready, we configure your first SAI and your access to the Link4LEAD platform. Access to the system is charged per year on a sliding scale depending on the number of SAIs in your account, regardless of traffic, and the number of administrators with access to the platform. Contact us for a quote

The price is on a sliding scale according to the number of SAIs.