Marketing Insights

So with the Superbowl coming up this weekend, I thought I would divert from the “I told you there would be no math” series and focus on something equally important…Fantasy Football and Demand Generation.  Yes I am one of those people who play Fantasy Football. I have the large HD LCD flatscreen, the NFL channel, and PVR (Tivo) to record every game. I have taught my 2 year old son to both recognize Tom Brady, and also make a wicked throwing motion – when I need a long bomb to Randy Moss to clinch my game.

I was thinking that there are many parallels between how you run a successful fantasy football season, and what it takes to run a successful Demand Generation organization. Indulge me…here we go.

It’s All About How You Matchup Against the Competition

Fantasy football is all about knowing your players and how they matchup against their opposing teams that week.  Even though you may have a great QB, if he is facing the no. 1 pass defense, maybe you should sit him that week. Well the same goes for marketing campaigns.  Many marketers today are using tools that allow them to see how prospects are visiting their website, and what they searched on to get there (great blog on search queries here).  This is becoming a new way of targeting follow-up campaigns or driving lead scores.  The reason search queries are so powerful, is that you know exactly what the prospect was thinking when they came to your site, how deep they are in their buying process, and are they evaluating any of your competition (“us vs. them”)?  By understanding who you are up against, you can zero-in on the strengths to highlight, and weaknesses to defend.

It’s Hard to Know Everything, So Rely on Others for Advice

There are so many things that go on during an NFL week, that it near impossible to stay on top of everything.  I heavily rely on data and advice provided to me by ESPN and other sites.  This allows me to stay on top of key trends and changes during the week.

Well the same goes with Demand Generation.  I am lucky at Eloqua to be involved with hundreds of successful customers, but not everyone has that luxury.  Get engaged with a community, read blogs (such as this one), and spend time with other demand generation professionals (see Eloqua Customer Success Tours).  Many marketers admit that they “don’t know what they don’t know”, but by spending time learning from others, you can at least “know more about what you don’t know”.

Time Kills All Deals (Inquiries)

In Fantasy Football timeliness of action is so critical.  Whether it is picking up a player on the waiver wire, or accepting a trade offer from another team.  You need be ready to take action, every day, every hour, every minute.  Well the same goes for Demand Generation.  You have heard the phrase “time kills all deals”, but how about “time kills all inquiries”?  In a study completed by M.I.T., they showcased that hours matter when following up to inquiries.  In fact, the chances of converting an inquiry to a qualified lead, is increased by 600% if you call in the first hour vs. the second hour. 600%!  That is really unbelievable.

Well there you have it.  If you are reading this article and won your fantasy football season, perhaps you should consider a career in Demand Generation.  Either that or you were just lucky enough to grab Chris Johnson or Aaron Rogers this year.  See you at the Superbowl.

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Today’s Marketing Master is the smart Amanda McGuckin Hager, Regional Marketing Manager for North American Programs for SolarWinds. She is also the founder of GoMarket.me, an online Marketing Mentor. Connect with her on LinkedIn or on Twitter.

How did you get to where you are today?
I was groomed for it from an early age. My Mom is a Realtor, so I grew up assembling direct mail pieces and promotional flyers at the dining room table. My Dad is a dentist in private practice, and I spent my afternoons after school watching his business in operation (and playing with his office supplies and dental equipment.)

What is interesting in Marketing in your space right now?
It’s probably not new to many of you, but I am very interested in Data and Customer Profiling right now. I am also drawn to NeuroMarketing, which I think is pure brilliance.

How do you get good ideas and inspiration?
From my community, from trusted sources, the world around me.

What campaign have you seen recently that really blew you away?
The way indie movies are hitting the scene, in a peer-to-peer, private screening format, is genius. The combination of Word-Of-Mouth/Product Review aspect with the Hyperlocality and Community aspect yields the root of Marketing – a win/win for product and consumer through effective distribution of a message.

If you were a font, which font would you be?
Helvetica

Please share a nugget of Marketing Wisdom with our readers?
Experiment. Test. Listen to your gut. Trust yourself.

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CFO: Marketer, these are serious allegations.

VP Sales: You marketers are all the same!  Your campaigns always look so slick.  You always are producing lots of “stuff”. But, when it comes to the tough questions, you never have answers!

Marketer: You want answers?

VP Sales: I think we are entitled to them.

Marketer: You want answers?

VP Sales: We want THE TRUTH!

Marketer: Pshh…You can’t handle the truth.  We live in a world that requires interest in our products and solutions and that interest must be strategically generated by people with elite skills. We have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You scoff at the marketing team, you curse our big budgets; you have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what we know – that while the cost of business results may seem excessive, it builds customer loyalty and scales revenue. My very existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, allows us to create a revenue-producing machine. You don’t want to know the truth because deep down in places that you don’t talk about at your pipeline forecast meetings you want me on that call; you need me on that call.  We use words like engagement, relevance, and calls-to-action.  We use these words as the backbone of a life spent building long-term relationships and creating demand. And you use them as a punch line. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to people who rise and sleep under the very blanket of genuine interest that I provide and then question the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said “thank you for finding that deal” and went on your way. Otherwise, might I suggest that you stop questioning me and close the deal I just sent to you, either way; I don’t care what you think you’re entitled to.

VP Sales: Can you prove how much revenue you impacted last year?

Marketer: I did the job I was hired to do.

VP Sales: Can you actually prove how much revenue you impacted last year?

Marketer: You’re darn right I can.

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Can you handle the truth? The truth is I see organizations continuing to FAIL in 2010. Fail in understanding what mix of marketing and sales strategies actually drive the business to its revenue and growth targets. I believe this is because we all continue to isolate sales and marketing instead of evaluating performance within context of the entire integrated sales and marketing funnel. We continue to judge the effectiveness of marketing by eyeballs that hit our website – and NOT revenue. We look at sales efficiencies without the context of inbound demand and how it is currently managed. We aren’t putting in service-level agreements and holding both functions accountable for the greater short-term and longer-term objectives.

I am looking for MORE than a few good marketers in 2010. I am looking for the elite sales and marketing professionals that are driving change in their organization and developing a CORE COMPETENCY in Demand Generation for their business. And, when I say core competency, I mean those organizations that have established a revenue machine. Stay tuned as I track them down and share insights from the front lines of those that are adopting the principles of The Demand Lifecycle and dominating their markets.

A Few Good Marketers will succeed in 2010. Will you be one of them?

**And, thank you to Alex Shootman and the clever Eloqua team for letting me steal the movie reenactment idea.

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Based on feedback and talking to hundreds of Eloqua clients, I’ve created a list of 10 goals that every demand generation professional should focus on in 2010 to increase their marketing effectiveness.  Each month I will blog on one of the goals in depth and provide examples.  In the meantime if you have any ideas or great examples, let me know. 

1.        Benchmark and assess for improvement in marketing effectiveness

2.        Review the health of your database

3.        Lead stage definitions – get in alignment with sales and implement in CRM and Eloqua

4.        Implement lead scoring and make sure you are monitoring results

5.        Identify manual processes and automate where appropriate

6.        Track everything you possibly can, but only report on actionable data

7.        Have fun with your campaigns

8.        Identify MBOs that are jointly shared with sales

9.        Document your marketing processes

10.      Take inventory of your campaigns, update where appropriate

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“I Was Told There Would Be No Math” – Part 2

Question: if a lead inquires on a campaign in Q1 2010 and counts towards your marketing metrics for conversion; when is that prospect eligible to be counted again as another inquiry?

The Miriam-Webster definition for inquiry is as follows:
Main Entry: in·qui·ry; date: 15th century
1 : examination into facts or principles : research
2 : a request for information
3 : a systematic investigation often of a matter of public interest

The marketing definition of an inquiry is still not as well defined as it needs to be.  Some say it is when a prospect “raises their hand” as a point of interest, and many marketers define that action as a campaign form submission in a given period of time. However as long as you stay consistent with how you define an inquiry, ongoing analysis should provide actionable  insight.  One question that is unclear as you look across longer periods of time, is when can you count that inquiry again?

Multiple Funnel Theory

A funnel represents a buying process that is initiated by a lead.  As that lead expresses more and more interest it will move further down the funnel, eventually being passed to sales and if all goes well turn into a customer.  I would say it is best practice to measure multiple funnels with a time frame that is easily aligned to marketing activities or campaigns (i.e. months, quarters).  The reason is if you are performing analysis on a funnel, you can better correlate the conversion and results to what you did from a marketing perspective.

Your “Dead Pool of Leads”

But what if the interest of that lead goes completely away to zero?  Does the lead really stay part of that Q1 2010 funnel…FOREVER?  I believe the answer is no.  Because on top of all of your quarterly funnels is a “Dead Pool of Leads” that have zero interest, and don’t belong to any “buying process at all” (another interesting article on inactive leads).

Codynamic^TM Lead Scoring Again?

So if you have multiple funnels, and a dead pool of leads on top of these funnels – how can you accurately determine when a lead is back in the deal pool and available to inquire on a future funnel?  The answer is Codynamic^TM Lead Scoring.  If you recall Codynamic^TM Lead Scoring tracks both the profile fit (company and contact data) and level of engagement (online activity and interest) of a lead.  It is best practice today to have your lead scoring program decay the level of engagement over time when there is no activity.  So if a lead inquires in Q1 2010, but then has no activity over a period of time, that lead will eventually fall to “zero interest” and should be  in your “dead pool of leads”.  So if at some point in the future you were to target them with a campaign, and the lead inquires on that campaign – they should count in a new funnel (Q3 2010).

How Do You Get to Zero Interest?

A common thought is that the rate of decay should be related to the length of your sales cycle, however I would disagree as sales cycle is much deeper in the funnel, where a lead has more commitment to the buying process. To find out more, check out Part 3 on lead scoring decay coming soon.

For more on how to target leads in your dead pool – check out this post by Steve Woods on how VFA re-engaged their dead leads.

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Whether you call them inactive contacts, emotional unsubscribes or dead people – if you continue to market to contacts in your database who are ignoring your communications it impacts your metrics, your reputation and your effectiveness. Watch this 3 minute video to learn more about identifying that part of your database that are emotionally unsubscribed.

Click image to watch now!

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Over the last few weeks I have been overwhelmed with email from every vendor whose website I have possibly visited in the last two years. It struck me that this is “end of year” and companies have revenue targets to hit so they are making this last effort in the 11th hour. It just really surprised me however that I haven’t heard from some of these companies in months… MANY months! As I glance at the FROM and SUBJECT line and delete more than I read, I wonder why aren’t they sending me something relevant? Why aren’t they communicating with me more frequently??

Then I ran across a post by Dennis Dayman, Eloqua’s Email Delivery and Privacy Officer. Dennis blogs on Deliverability.com where he recently shared this holiday story that his friend Rick Buck of e-Dialog had sent around. Thanks Rick!! This certainly resonated with me and I wish I could send this message to all those vendors spamming me this month.

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‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the land,
marketers were scheming to hit year-end plans.

Their e-mails were designed in great detail and care,
in hopes that all of their customers soon would be there.

Mail the entire list. Mail them all!
Mail away! Mail away! Mail away all!”

The executives were nestled all snug in their beds,
with visions of Q4 revenue dancing in their heads.

When back in the office arose such a clatter,
that delivery support ran to see what was the matter?

Away to their reporting tools they flew like a flash,
investigating each client’s mailing to look for the trash.

The data before them on the newly sent mail
gave all indications of why they did fail.

When what to their wondering eyes should appear,
but a slew of bounce codes that no one would endear.

Unknown User! Inactive Account! Mailbox Doesn’t Exist!
Blocks from the ISPs were hard to resist.

If only they’d listened and segmented their data.
Their mailing would have been delivered,  staying off of the ISP’s radar.

Relevance, hygiene, permission and more,
ultimately gets the campaign safely out the door.

Reach out to your clients now and give them a shout.
Make sure they understand what this is all about.

Eliminate unknown users, non-responders, and hard bounces alike,
and watch delivery and response rates soar and spike.

It is important to take heed of this trustworthy advice,
because the ISPs know if you’re naughty or nice.

During this important mailing season we must get it right.
Happy Holidays to all, and to all a good-night!

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More mistakes that Marketers need to avoid in 2010 can be found at Anything Goes Marketing. One of the five mistakes listed: “If you continue to only send email blasts on a schedule that you dictate to your email subscribers, you risk massive list attrition, damaging your overall email deliverability.”

Happy *successful* email deliverability in 2010!

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Random acts of content do not help the buyer through their evaluation process. In fact lack of relevant content cuts the likelihood you’ll make the shortlist by 33%, having a huge impact on your demand generation and lead nurturing efforts. Watch this short video sharing 3 easy tips to generating fresh and engaging content for your buyers.

Click to watch this 2 minute video now!

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That quote was pulled from a classic Saturday Night Live skit with Chevy Chase impersonating Gerald Ford at a presidential debate.  However, it may be just as relevant today, as we head into the new world of demand generation, and marketing automation – I bet many of you didn’t realize how much math would be required in your marketing role.

Conversion rates? Effective rates?  Averages of rates?  How about the difficulties of calculating conversion as a lead moves from inquiry to qualified lead to opportunity to a deal?  What if you have multiple funnels?  

When tackling some of the campaign analysis that is required to look at response rates, ROI or funnel conversion, the math can get quite complex.  Let’s look at some golden rules, and see if we can find some answers.

Rule #1. Work Backwards, From the Results That Would Make Sense.

There are many different ways to calculate rates, and there is some debate on the best way to calculate an average rate (Open, Click-Through, Conversion, etc.).  Two methods seem to be most prevalent, so let’s look at an example using each method and see where we should land.

Campaign 1 – 100,000 visitors to the landing page, 100 forms submitted, 0.1% Conversion Rate
Campaign 2 – 1,000 visitors to the landing page, 100 forms submitted, 10% Conversion Rate
Campaign 3- 1,000 visitors to the landing page, 100 forms submitted 10% Conversion Rate
Campaign 4- 1,000 visitors to the landing page, 100 forms submitted, 10% Conversion Rate

• Method 1: Calculate the rate for each campaign, then average all of the rates, so in this case your average conversion rate would be 30.1%/4 = 7.5% conversion
• Method 2: Sum the data for all campaigns, then calculate the rate to get an average, so in this case it would be 400/103,000 = 0.4% conversion

These two methods produce very different rates, which would have very different resulting actions.  If you look at the raw data, it would be obvious that Campaign 1 performed poorly compared to the other campaigns, but if you used Method 1 to calculate averages – it may not be obvious you have a problem with conversion in one of your campaigns.  Method 2 however would clearly indicate something has gone wrong – and may lead you to delve deeper and find the campaign(s) that is driving the issue.  That would be the “Result That Makes Sense”, and therefore by “working backwards” I would choose Method 2 to calculate averages of rates.

Try using the principle when you come across other “debatable” marketing calculations.

Stay tuned for Part 2 – Double Counting Inquiries, and Part 3 – Conversion by Deals or Revenue?

As more and more buyers go online for information, more information is being provided online by sellers. As more information is made available, the search a buyer goes through to find what’s relevant to them is becoming more and more challenging. When faced with this dilemma, recent research by the Nielsen Company shows “there is a segment of the online population that uses social media as a core navigation and information discovery tool”. Why? Not only do buyers trust third party insight, but social media acts as a filtration tool for information.

As an online marketer trying to figure out how to leverage social media, you may be facing a similar information overload of content on *social marketing how-to* leaving you unsure of where to start. In the guest post below, Joe Chernov, Director of Communications & Social Media at Eloqua, shares how Eloqua can get you from Zero to Social in three easy steps.

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It’s virtually impossible to discuss marketing without the conversation shifting to social media.  For many of us, social media and marketing have become almost synonymous.   But with this spike in attention comes a surge in information.  There are countless books, blogs, reports, tweets and articles on the topic of social marketing.  This staggering amount of content can cause marketing paralysis:  With so many paths to follow, taking the first step can be daunting.

When facing an impasse, it’s best to keep moving.  And when it comes to social media marketing, the best move is the one that allows you to get started.   It’s this awareness – the notion that marketers don’t want to do everything in social media, they want to do something in social media – that drove us to create our new Social Sharing & Reporting tools.  What is it?  It’s a simple way for our clients trigger conversations about their products and join conversations already underway.  Because when it comes to social media, all conversations matter.

In the end, social media isn’t about products, marketing or even media.  It’s about people.  So my colleague, Jody Mooney, created this super-short video in which she explains, person to person, how Eloqua can take you “from zero to social” in three easy steps.

Once you get started in social media, it’s critical to stay engaged.  You cannot pop in and out when it suits you.  Unlike traditional communications, in which marketers dial-up and dial-down messaging based on corporate developments, social media is not a sine wave.  It’s a flat line. It’s an ongoing conversation with your customers, your partners, your fans and even your detractors.

And for those of you who want to dive a little deeper into social media marketing, I recommend MarketingSherpa’s 2009 Social Media Marketing & PR Benchmark Guide.  This book contains every chart conceivable on marketing across the social Web.  You will be an expert in no time.

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