Demand Generation Best Practices from Vtrenz

Lead Management Scores Again

2008-08-04T14:18:54-05:00

I recently re-read BtoB Magazine's first-ever Lead Generation Guide and it reminded me how important lead management is in the world of BtoB marketing. All the factors of a "perfect storm" are gathering to elevate this industry to the level of SFA or, dare I say, CRM. Marketers from all industries and company sizes are seeing real business benefits by leveraging lead management and lead generation as a key capability.

In fact, from the articles and research by various analyst groups, they continue to find leading companies that make lead management a strategic imperative. Aberdeen Research saw a stark difference in Best in Class organizations and their use of lead management in their marketing efforts versus companies that do not employ such methods.

As well, in a survey by IDC of chief marketing officers, respondents rated lead management more important than their brand awareness, online and interactive efforts and their customer knowledge activities.

What does this all mean? Well, to the typical BtoB marketer, it means that the impact you can have on your organization is no longer confined to just the number of leads you create-your impact to company success is now being discussed in the board room in terms of revenue generated, margins obtained, and satisfied customer relationships.

Lead Management scores again, and the crowds go wild.

Using Email to Increase ROI of Search PPC and SEO

2008-07-25T11:42:15-05:00

If you are like many BtoB marketers, search pay per click (PPC) programs like Google AdWords are a significant part of your marketing budget.

BtoB marketers with an annual budget of $1.2 million spend roughly 10 percent on search PPC advertising and about one percent on SEO, MarketingSherpa says. Many high-tech companies or those with short sales cycles might spend 20 percent to 40 percent or more.

No matter how much you spend on PPC or SEO, you can extend your ROI significantly when you incorporate email.

On the PPC side, you are likely converting two to five percent of your PPC clicks. That means 95+ of every 100 site visitors are not taking the primary action you want.

Some are interested but just not ready to buy, download, or sign up. Invite them into a secondary relationship by opting in to your email program. This can open the door to conversion farther down the funnel.

Say 20 of every 95 non-clickers signs up for your email program before bouncing away. With careful nurturing via email drip campaigns, newsletters and trigger-based emails, you might convert another two to five from that original group. Now, you've doubled your ROI from that first group of 100 site visitors without spending another PPC penny, or diverting email budget.

Integrating email with search can also help you grow your email database and allow you to redirect list-growth dollars toward other email marketing resources.

Key to these efforts is a landing page that balances two objectives: to direct visitors to take your primary action first, and then to show a clear value proposition for your email program that doesn't overshadow your primary action.

Email Boosts SEO Results, Too

If you publish content-rich newsletters that mix news and advice while promoting your brand or solutions, optimizing the email content to target your important keywords or phrases and then archiving this content on your site can help you rank higher on search engines and generate traffic for years through organic searches.

Optimize article URLs, title tags and links to reflect your targeted keywords. Incorporate crosslinks to related articles on your site, and link previous articles and newsletters to your freshly posted content.

Now, you can reallocate some PPC funds being spent on keywords that naturally rank high, driving more traffic, leads and conversions without spending more money.

Email and search – a natural combination!

Online Marketing in Asia Pacific: Thoughts from ad:tech Singapore

2008-07-22T08:21:31-05:00

Time flies in this world of digital marketing. Less than one month ago, Bill Nussey and I were speaking at the inaugural ad:tech show in Singapore. As opposed to many of the US-based shows that seem to attract more of the interactive, BtoC audience, the Singapore show had a great mix of BtoC interactive as well as BtoB direct marketers, including a dedicated track for BtoB topics. Given the mix of marketing specialties, there was much more of a, dare I say, practical nature to the presentations and discussions.

For example, though mobile was, as usual, discussed widely, there wasn't a "holy grail" feeling of mobile marketing (see Bill’s blog post on same topic). Could this be the year that it now takes hold? After being burned year after year by making proclamations that didn’t pan out, most speakers were cautiously optimistic that mobile is now ready to take a real seat at the marketing mix table.

In terms of online advertising, the movement from offline to online marketing efforts of most businesses in Asia Pacific is just beginning, but growing rapidly. For example, according to the Asia Digital Marketing Association:

China's online spending was up 75% to approximately $1.3B, now on par with total spending for Australia
Internet advertising in Hong Kong and Singapore is expected to grow by more than 30% this year with online ad spend in Singapore overtaking traditional ads by 2010
India's online spending, currently, is only 1% of all ad spending, compared with Korea and Japan where, by 2009, an estimated 10% of all ad spending will be online

From these numbers, you can imagine the online ad growth possible in the next 3-5 years. With this growth comes the need to best capture and nurture possible online leads. It was no surprise that much of the discussion at the show was around best practices for opt-in name capture, email design, and tactics to improve email response rates and deliverability. Even with the mobile sophistication of Asia's market, email is still deemed the best and most cost effective permission-based marketing and lead management tactic. With the launch of the iPhone in Asia and the proliferation of PDA devices, email will continue to provide a low cost, yet highly effective direct marketing channel for marketers.

For a further take on "what's hot and what's not" in relation to digital marketing from the show, I encourage you to read Nick Wreden's FusionBrand blog.

When "Winning" Is Really Losing

2008-07-17T10:04:21-05:00

Winning is good until you realize you really lost. Winning new business is fantastic, but failing to nurture and satisfy your existing customers can become the mother of all losses. It's the kind of mistake marketers make when they underutilize internal customer data and analytics to increase loyalty and provide up-sell and cross-sell opportunities to their current client base.

According to a recent study by the Chief Marketing Officer Council, only half of marketers have a strategy in place for growing customer relationships. Further, only 15 percent of companies rate themselves extremely good or effective at integrating disparate customer data sources, and only 6 percent of marketers reported having "excellent knowledge" of customer data such as demographics, psychographics or relational data such as transactional history.

That's scary enough, but the study further finds that more than 31percent of marketers reported churn rates of more than 10 percent, but two-thirds had no system in place to re-activate dormant or lost customers. I guess all eyes are focused on lead acquisition and lead management, rather than efforts around current customers.

As we all know, acquiring new customers is far more costly than satisfying the ones you already have. And during tough economic times, the decision makers you're chasing after are less likely to take risks with new companies or products, preferring to stick with trusted sources and brands they know. Now more than ever you should focus on leveraging customer information to send relevant and timely information to enhance a customer experience or re-engage a dormant relationship.

Use customer insights to recognize behavior and responses and determine who should get what promotion and who needs a little TLC. Again, new business is great. But cultivating existing accounts into becoming potential lifelong customers is priceless. The process may take time, but it's a real winning strategy.

Actions do speak louder than words, but...

2008-07-11T16:11:05-05:00

Actions may speak louder than words, however they don't replace them. In the world of Lead Scoring, you need both. The actions of your lead become the validating component of a balanced scoring model, which includes what your lead tells you. For instance, if a lead says he has budget and is the director of sales, that's a fantastic start, but only half the battle is won. Your lead scoring model needs to take into account lead activity as well. Are they downloading two white papers and visiting your company's Website three times in one week?

When activity is absent from the Lead Score Model, the data will not have any correlation with relevancy. So a hot lead based on BANT (Budget, Authority, Need and Timeline) + demographic scores will continue to appear hot three years from now. By including activity in your lead score model, you can determine the current relevancy of the score -- yes, the lead was hot and still is, or it was hot a long time ago but not anymore.

Monitoring activity allows for ongoing changes of a lead scoring even when that lead is not explicitly telling you something has changed. In essence, activity enlightens your static data, making it timely and relevant.

Typical scenario:
Sales..."Do you know why this lead was scored so high?"
Marketing... "We scored that lead two years ago so I'm not sure."

To avoid that scenario make sure your lead score model is balanced by activity. Here's how it's done!

Basic Lead Scoring formula

Total Lead Score = BANT score + Demographics score + Behavior score

Advanced Lead Scoring formula (activity is made up of 3 components measured over time)

Total Lead Score = BANT score + Demographics score + Activity score

Activity score = (recency + Frequency + Behaviors) - time decay algorithms)

Go forth and score!

Data Collection is the Starting Point of an Effective Lead Scoring Model (Part II) By Bryan Brown

2008-07-03T14:35:41-05:00

Uncontrollable data (non structured): At times marketing will not have control over the way certain data is collected and brought into the marketing database. This is typically the case for tradeshows, list acquisition, and previously collected data. Your challenge then is to find a way to score this manually entered data without being able to exactly match it. The solution depends on the capabilities of your LSM.

Does your lead scoring model support wild card matches?

Yes (congratulations): For each field you plan to score, create a list of phrases that your LSM will search.

No: Try to find the most common occurrences of manually entered data and add them to your LSM. This approach is severely limited and might result in a high amount of score-able data not being identified.

Copied below is a sample lead score model using some of the ideas I've discussed thus far.

Closing points:

Use cookies, de dup on submit, or other syncing and authentication methods which will ensure that data is appended to the existing lead's record rather than creating duplicates each time they submit a form (your demand generation software should do this for you)
Use progressive scoring tactics by asking additional LSM questions with each interaction of your lead (1st form - 3 questions, 2nd form - next 2 questions, 3rd form - all 8 questions)
Pre-populate the questions they have previously answered to increase their confidence in the relationship and save them time
Structure data when possible for more accurate scoring

These simple steps will increase the simplicity and accuracy of your lead scoring model allowing marketers to send qualified leads to sales.

Data Collection is the Starting Point of an Effective Lead Scoring Model (Part I) By Bryan Brown

2008-07-01T10:07:28-05:00

Data collection is the start of an effective lead scoring model (LSM). This is a given for the advanced lead scoring guru, but for everyone else this is the often overlooked beginning point to develop a LSM that actually works. If you've recently implemented a LSM or are getting ready to start, here are a few pointers that will set you on the right path:

Begin with a simple evaluation of the data entry points to your marketing database. Your list will likely include the following: tradeshow lists, Website forms, CRM data entry, landing pages, and third party sources.
Group the data entry points into two categories: controllable data and uncontrollable data.

Controllable (structured) data: If marketing has the ability to control the way data is collected, they should seek to structure that data for the purpose of their lead scoring model. This is most often the case with Web forms, landing pages, and CRM data entry.

Evaluate the questions on these lead forms. Most likely you have already been asking questions that are part of your manual lead evaluation process.
Identify the basic questions that can be standardized across all your forms. Not that the same questions need to appear on every form, but when they appear they need to collect the data in standardized formats.
Ensure that the data points you will score on are not open ended questions. For example: instead of asking people to type in their job title, include a drop down list of roles you would expect from leads/visitors to your site so you'll capture consistent responses.
Follow best practices when creating forms. The number of questions should increase or decrease in harmony with the perceived value of the offer.

The image below shows an example of standardized questions one might use to score leads.

In my next blog I will share more information about handling the data you can't control and other "gotchas" that can destroy your lead-scoring model.

Are You Still CAN-SPAM Compliant?

2008-06-25T11:53:04-05:00

This blog post from Bill Nussey provides clarification of the new CAN-SPAM Act rules, which go into effect July 7th.

MESSAGE FROM BILL NUSSEY
CEO, Silverpop

Are you Still CAN-SPAM Compliant?

As you may be aware, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission recently enacted new rules intended to clarify the original provisions of the 2003 CAN-SPAM Act. The supplementary ruling, which now goes into effect July 7, may have important implications for your email marketing program. Here are some of the key provisions for discussion purposes:

Mandated Simplification of Opt-out Processes. The new rules clarify the opt-out required under CAN-SPAM. You'll want to examine your opt-out process to determine if it is in compliance with this new rule, which states:

The opt-out may not be conditioned on the payment of any fee.
The recipient must not be required to provide anything more than email address and associated opt-out preferences for that email address (i.e., no password, account number, name, etc. can be required).
The opt-out mechanism must rely on either a reply email or a visit to a single Internet Web page and nothing more (i.e., multiple Web page opt-out processes are no longer allowed).

Designated Sender Rule Established. This new rule provides a framework whereby multiple advertisers that appear in the same commercial email message, each of which normally would satisfy the Act's definition of "sender," may designate a single sender among them as the sole sender of the message. If you routinely engage in list rentals or joint promotions, you will want to examine this provision closely.

P.O. Box Usage Confirmed. Businesses may publish a sender's P.O. box or private mailbox in a commercial email message to comply with the valid physical postal address requirement.

In addition to the provisions above, there are several other important additions to the CAN-SPAM act which I share on my blog.

Cheers,

Bill Nussey

Sales and Marketing - Where is the Love? By Loren McDonald

2008-06-20T14:49:20-05:00

Marketing and Sales still don't understand each other. A new study by the CMO Council and summarized by MarketingCharts confirms what we all already know, which is these two critical corporate departments still have a long way to go to optimize the sales and demand generation process.

While there isn't much new in this study, the results remind us of how much work is left to be done-and that technology alone won't solve the sales and marketing divide challenge.

Some highlights of the study include:

Forty percent of marketers surveyed said they had some top sales producers but there was mostly a need for improvement.
Only 10 percent of surveyed sales professionals see marketers as market-savvy and on target with demand-generating campaigns. Confirming the stereotypical view that many marketers are tactical, 41 percent of sales professionals say marketing provides good/right content and sales-support materials.
Twelve percent of sales and marketing professionals say they have a well-integrated, real-time view of all customer interactions.
Thirty-seven percent of sales and marketing professionals report good visibility into prospects, pipeline, deal flow and conversion rates.
Fifty-five percent of marketing and sales professionals surveyed say their companies have not implemented, or are just in the planning stage to implement formal efforts to integrate or align the sales and marketing functions.
Twenty percent of sales and marketing professionals indicate that marketing hands off leads to sales, yet marketing has no insight into conversion and close outcomes; 13 percent say most leads are never captured, qualified or acted upon; and about 11 percent report they have no on-premise or on-demand CRM system in place.
While CRM systems tend to be mandated and adopted across the sales organization, they tend to be more selectively embraced by marketing teams in business units and departments.

As someone who has been in and around marketing departments the last 24 years, I believe it is incumbent upon marketers to take the "bull by the horns." Sales people do what they do-and most do it well. They sell. They aren't going to change, just as my wife of nearly 25 years isn't going to suddenly stop squeezing the toothpaste tube in the middle.

Demand generation and marketing automation solutions are clearly the foundation and the catalyst that will help bring sales and marketing departments together. But marketing professionals also need to change the dynamic of their conversations with sales people. When speaking with sales, remove words like "hits," "downloads," "sign-ups," "trade booth forms" from your lexicon. Shifting the conversation with sales beyond "leads" to "quality leads" is also one of the first steps to closing the sales and marketing divide.

Like any attempt at change, always begin at "home."

Welcome Two New Voices to the Lead Management Blog-o-Sphere!

2008-06-18T09:01:13-05:00

I'm pleased to announce that two of my colleagues will be joining me on Demand Generation Strategies. Loren McDonald, Silverpop vice president of industry relations and Bryan Brown, co-founder of the Vtrenz solution and current director of product management and development for Vtrenz will share their knowledge, thoughts and insights.

A columnist and frequent speaker at major industry conferences and events, Loren is well known throughout the industry, and is often quoted in the trade press. He possesses a keen understanding of email marketing and insights into methods to maximize the benefits and returns the channel offers to both BtoB and BtoC marketers. I look forward to his contribution to this blog as he focuses on demand generation strategies and relationship management best practices. For more information about Loren, check out my prior blog post here.

Bryan oversees product development, drives product strategy and is the key solution architect of the Vtrenz platform. He is instrumental in leading the innovation and methodology behind the Vtrenz lead management and marketing automation capabilities. He has spent his career building and managing Web-based marketing and e-business solutions across multiple industries, and his thorough understanding of permission based marketing processes has laid the foundation for the development of the Vtrenz solution. I am excited to read his future postings. Bryan's qualifications and unique perspective will no doubt prove valuable to readers looking to apply advanced technical solutions to improve their demand generation capabilities.