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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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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So how can I make sure there is buy-in from sales at the beginning of the process?

One of our customers, Astute Solutions created a lead attribute worksheet they provided their sales team to rank each value to make sure they were part of the process.  They worked with a few key sales people, explained the process and had them complete the worksheet.  Once each had completed with their answers, all the data was aggregated and provided marketing with a definition of what makes a qualified lead to the sales team.

Here are the steps they followed:

• Step 1 – Defined Explicit and Implicit Criteria, for example – Job Function, Webcast Attendee.
• Step 2 – Define Values for each Explicit Criteria, for example – values A – G.
• Step 3 – Choose sales reps to complete the worksheet.  Provide them with the Criteria and Values and ask them to weight each 1-3.  1= Low Value, 2= Moderate Value 3= High Value.
• Step 4 – Aggregate all the sales reps’ answers into one worksheet .  Total the entire score.  The weighted average is the total score divided by how many sales reps involved in the process.  For example Value A for Job Function was 15 Total Score, divided by 5 sales reps = Weighted Average 3.0.
• Step 5 – Based on the Weighted Average, each is High Value, Moderate Value or Low Value.  Now you can use this information to ensure your lead scoring categories and attributes are 100% in alignment with sales’ approach to a qualified lead.

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