Now that you are familiar with how lead lifecycle programs work, let’s begin the process of creating one. In our example, we will be showing you how to manage campaigns and alerts in a lead lifecycle program, change your lead status from unknown to engaged by creating a hand raise campaign, notify sales of marketing qualified leads, create and send an email to sales when leads reach marketing qualified status, use a smart campaign to drive and manage the sending of your sales alert email, use a pre-built program you can tailor with your own content.

We’ll start by logging into your Marketo account and navigating to marketing activities. We’ll need to create an operational folder to house all the campaigns we’ll be creating in this module. So we’ll right click the new dropdown, select new campaign folder. Then give it the name, “Operational programs”. We’ll be building several campaigns in this module, so be sure to follow each important section.

To start building the full lead lifecycle program, right click the operational programs folder, then select new program. The campaign folder should be the same as the one we just right clicked, but a different folder can be chosen here if needed. Name, for this example, we’ll name the program “Lead Lifecycle”. For best practices, make sure all your naming conventions make sense to you, your company and to anyone else using your Marketo instance. For program type, choose default and the channel is operational. For the description field, add a description that makes sense to you. For our example, we’ll add, “Program to manage lead lifecycle campaigns and alerts.” Then we’ll click create. For best practices, we’ll go ahead and create two folders in this program. So we’ll right click the program we just created, select new folder and give it the name, assets. We’ll repeat the same steps for the second folder and name it campaigns.

A hand raiser is an anonymous lead that engages through behaviors like clicking a button to indicate they want to be contacted, or downloading helpful content. In this first section, our goal is to change the lead status from unknown to engaged. We’ll start with right clicking the campaigns folder, then select new smart campaign. In the popup window, the program will default to lead lifecycle. For name, we’ll call this, “01 Change lead status to engaged”. Give the description, “Change the lead status from unknown to engaged.” Then we’ll click create. We’ll go ahead and drag this new smart campaign to the campaigns folder. Next, we’ll click the smart list tab and define the audience to be based on a trigger. We’ll drag the fills out form trigger over to the canvas. Leave form name set to is and select a form from the dropdown menu. In our example, we’ll choose download form in the website downloads program. In this same trigger, we’ll click add constraint to add another rule and select webpage from the menu. We’ll leave webpage set to is and select a webpage from the dropdown menu. In our example, we’ll choose a landing page that we’ve already created. This landing page houses the download form. Now we’ll add a filter that excludes people whose status is not engaged, marketing qualified, sales accepted or sales qualified. This way, our campaign won’t take any action if a person already has one of those statuses. In the search field, enter status. Then drag over the lead status filter to the canvas. We’ll set the lead status to is not. Then click the plus sign to add multiple values. Add engaged, marketing qualified, sales accepted and sales qualified to the selected values field and then click OK.

We’ll move on to the flow tab and drag over change data value flow step to the canvas. We want to change the lead status based on the triggers set in the smart list tab. So we’ll set attribute to lead status and set new value to engaged. Moving on to the schedule step, we’ll leave this set to have each lead run through the flow once. Then we’ll click activate.

A marketing qualified lead, or MQL, is a lead that is qualified to be sent to marketing based on their lead score reaching the desired threshold and by requesting to be contacted by requesting a demo. In this second section, our goal is to notify sales of marketing qualified leads. Right click the campaigns folder. Then select new smart campaign to get started. In the popup window, the program will default to lead lifecycle. For name, we’ll call this, “02 Change lead status to MQL”. Give the description, “Based off reaching scoring threshold and requesting demo,” and click create. We’ll go ahead and drag this new smart campaign into the campaign’s folder. Next, we’ll click the smart list tab and define the audience to be based on a trigger. Drag the score is changed trigger over to the canvas. Leave score name set to is and from the dropdown, we’ll select the default lead score option. Next, we’ll click add constraint. Then select new score from the options. In the operator field, we’ll select at least from the dropdown and add a marketing qualified score threshold. In this example, we’ll use the number 75, but if you have a different threshold, you’ll adjust this number to your own threshold. And now we’ll add another trigger.

Drag the fills out form trigger over to the canvas. We’ll set the form name operator to is and for our example, we’ll select the demo request form from the dropdown. Next, we’ll click add constraint and select webpage from the options. In the operator field, we’ll select is from the dropdown and then in this example, we’ll say page is product demo request. We also need to add a filter to this smart list. Drag over the lead status filter to the canvas. We’ll set the operator to is not. Then click the plus sign to add multiple values. We don’t want anyone’s status to already be MQL, SAL or SQL, because we want to pull everyone who isn’t further down the pipeline. So we’ll add those values to the selected values field, then click OK. We’ll move on to the flow step and drag over change data value flow step to the canvas. We want to change the lead status based on the triggers set in the smart list tab and set the attribute to lead status and set new value to MQL. Moving on to the schedule step, we want to allow leads to run through this program every three days. So we’ll click the edit button and then in the edit qualification rules window, we’ll click the radio button for once every and set it to three days. We’ll click save. Then activate.

In our lead lifecycle program, we’re now going to create an email alert to notify sales of the marketing qualified lead. To create the alert, we’ll right click the assets folder, select new local asset, then select email. We’ll choose the text email from the template picker titled, personal note. We’ll title the email, “Alert MQL ready for sales.” The body of the email will include information about the lead and direct links to the lead’s records in Marketo and the CRM. This is an internal operation email that will bypass unsubscribe status or marketing suspended status. So we’ll check the check box for operational email and click create. Next, we’ll drag the email into the assets folder and approve it by right clicking it and selecting approve.

Now we’ll create another smart campaign to automate the sending of the alert to sales. Right click the campaigns folder and select new smart campaign. We’ll name this one, “03 Send sales alerts - MQL leads”, then click create. We’ll go ahead and drag this new smart campaign into the campaigns folder. Next, we’ll click the smart list tab and define the audience to be based on a trigger. We’ll drag over the data values changes trigger over to the canvas and set the attribute to lead status. Next, we’ll click add constraint. Then select new value from the options. The operator field, we’ll leave set to is and from the second dropdown select MQL. We’ll add another constraint and select previous value from the options. The operator field, we’ll leave set to is and click the green plus sign to add multiple values. In the multiple value chooser window, we’ll add unknown and engaged. Then click OK. We’ll move on to the flow tab and drag over the wait step. We want to give enough time for the lead to sync over to your CRM before the alerts begin sending. We’ll click the gear icon to set the duration to five minutes. Then we’ll click save. Next, drag over send alert step to the canvas. In the email field, we’ll select the lead lifecycle alert, MQL ready for sales. Then choose to send it to the sales owner. Moving on to the schedule step, we want to allow leads to run through this program every three days, so we’ll click the edit button. Then in the edit qualification rules window, we’ll click the radio button for once every and set it to three days. We’ll click save, then activate. Now you have a lead lifecycle operational program built where you can communicate to sales when leads reach different thresholds in your marketing funnel.

There are two ways you can create a lead lifecycle program, directly in marketing activities in the steps we’ve just shown or through importing a pre-built program. Marketo has a pre-built lead lifecycle program you can use as a template to build off of and tailor with your own titles, content, audience and flow. To import, select the operational programs folder and in the new dropdown, select import program. In step one, we’ll select the program to import. From the subscription dropdown, select Marketo program library. In the import program dropdown, select OP lifecycle basic. Then click next. In step two, we’ll select the campaign folder, operational programs. Then click next. In step three, we’ll review the summary and click import.

When the basic program completes its import, you’ll see it contains best practice folder structure, smart campaigns and emails you can customize for your own lead lifecycle marketing purposes. -