Media training 101 for small businesses

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Great news: you just scored a big press interview to promote your business. The story will expose your brand to the perfect new audience and drive meaningful traffic to your website. So…don't blow it. Yes, just as quickly as the excitement for the opportunity arrived, the realization that you now have to do an interview sets in. I get it—press interviews can absolutely be intimidating. The resulting coverage represents a significant opportunity to acquire new customers, drive sales, or raise awareness, and you want to be sure to represent your brand well and really compel the audience to check out your company. On top of that, you have to contend with adrenaline and nerves in the moment. You may be thinking, "So many other business owners are so polished and articulate in their interviews. How am I going to pull that off?" Deep breath. A successful interview is usually the result of good media training: preparation and practice in advance of an interview. I've tr...
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How a Systems Technologist Helps Her Team Differentiate New and Existing Leads with Automation

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In the sales world, you need to distinguish between new and existing leads. You probably have a specific workflow for new leads—maybe a call, demo, onboarding email campaign—that you wouldn't use for existing leads.

So how do you differentiate the new leads from those that you and your team have already contacted—without having to manually verify their status?

Tatiana Sharp, Senior Systems Technologist at Lightmark Media, a digital marketing firm for realtors, uses Zapier, an app automation tool that connects the multitude of apps you use professionally. Tatiana has a few Zaps, our word for automated workflows, that help her and the Lightmark Media team know when a lead is brand new.

This differentiation matters to the clients of Lightmark Media, who, as busy realtors, can't always check a customer relationship management (CRM) tool to see if they've already made initial contact with a lead. These Zaps keep their clients' CRM clean, organized, and easy-to-read—and best of all, they make the new leads easy to act on.

Most of those leads come in via phone call or text message. To track, analyze, and value those leads, Lightmark Media trusts CallRail. By assigning a phone number to the specific ad campaigns they run for each client, Lightmark Media takes full advantage of CallRail's extensive reporting data—helping them optimize future campaigns, which sends more and better leads to their clients.

And by connecting CallRail with Zapier, Tatiana can automatically sift through all the phone calls clients receive and only send new leads to their CRM.

About Lightmark Media

With a focus on pay-per-click (PPC) marketing campaigns on platforms like Facebook, Google, and Bing, Lightmark Media helps real estate agents find motivated leads and close deals. But as a digital marketing firm, their efforts go beyond advertisement, into website design and creation, marketing automation, and branding.

By integrating their tools with Zapier, Tatiana and the team found a way to bring even more value to their real estate clients. After all, if Lightmark Media's clients don't have worry about the back-end and technical side of the equation, they can spend more time with their own clients, showing houses and closing deals.

Lightmark Media's Tools

Icon: App: Used For:
CallRail CallRail Call tracking and analytics tool
Podio Podio Project management tool, used as a CRM
Filter Filter Filters for information based on conditions you set
Google Sheets Google Sheets Backup leads database

Send New Calls to a CRM as Leads

For Lightmark Media, handling their clients' leads means understanding the value of those leads. A clean lead management process, without duplicates, can be the difference between their client closing a deal and that lead taking its business elsewhere.

At the core of Lightmark Media's lead management are two Zaps: The first connects CallRail to their clients' CRM, which tends to be Podio. When a lead calls the phone number from a client's ad, Zapier takes that information and creates an item in Podio. Once created, the item can be updated by the realtor with more information like notes, face-to-face meeting dates, house showings, and more.

A second Zap sends the new call information from CallRail to Google Sheets, creating a new row full of the lead's information. This creates a back-up leads database, in case the client ever has trouble accessing their CRM.

But in order to only pass along only new leads, Tatiana added Zapier's Filter to each of the Zaps. Thanks to CallRail's data, Tatiana can filter based on whether or not that specific lead has called that number before. If they haven't called, they get added to Podio and Google Sheets. But if they have, the Zap doesn't add the lead and prevents a duplicate from adding to the clutter.

For simplicity's sake, we didn't include the Filter app in the following Zap templates, but you can always add it to your own Zaps.

With Zapier handling lead management, Tatiana and the rest of the team can spend more time with each client, enabling them to build relationships and craft successful campaigns.

Want to work as effectively as Tatiana and the Lightmark Media team? Give Zapier a try for free.

Our stories explore how Zapier's users solve common problems. From marketers to CEOs, educators to real estate agents, millions use Zapier to automate their most tedious tasks. If you haven't yet, try Zapier for free to see what we're all about.

What's your story? Tell us how you use Zapier to do more. You can also read even more customer stories and find new ways to improve your workflow and productivity.

All images courtesy of Lightmark Media.



from The Zapier Blog http://bit.ly/2LYwwDW

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