The Rules of Lead Generation Defined – Book Review

For years I’ve been helping B2B marketers execute on their marketing strategies and at times I felt like I was working from scraps of information here and there that I have learned over the years. The issue was that there really wasn’t a guide for B2B marketers. We now have one: The New Rules of Lead Generation: Proven Strategies to Maximize Marketing ROI by David T. Scott. David was kind enough to send me on a copy and I will provide a short review of his groundbreaking work.

There are many smart marketers out there that have provided a bunch of insightful resources but there really wasn’t a straightforward starting point for someone new who was just breaking into the field. David’s book has helped bridge that gap by creating the B2B Marketing bible for demand generation marketers. I have not seen another book out there that is ambitious enough to include the majority of marketing tactics covering both offline and online formats.

Who Should Read This Book: Anyone New to B2B Marketing or Wanting to Improve

David makes it very clear whom he is targeting – it’s not the mom and pop shop businesses. He’s trying to help those marketers that are looking for information on principles and strategies of enterprise level lead generation. If you are someone that wants to get an introduction into some of the tried and tested tactics as well as the basics on putting a lead generation strategy together, this book is for you.

Besides those that may be new to B2B marketing, I would also recommend this book to those that are trying to put the various pieces together and may have been thrown into the role or volunteered without a full background in this area. Have a look at this book – you will benefit from it.

 

What Did I Like? A Focus on Strategy, Testing and Metrics

Definitions & Strategy. I love this quote from David “You can’t build a strong house without a string foundation”. The book is split up into two major areas: definitions and strategy of lead generation and lead gen tactics.

David makes it clear that you need a firm strategy in place or your tactics will fail and you won’t be able to convince your executives to get the funding you need. He provides you with the details you need to start the planning process so even a newbie can get this in place in no time. David starts off by defining some of the basic concepts of lead generation as well as focus on targeting and segmentation (My comment: YES!). Without these foundations, it can be difficult for marketers to get their bearings and execute on their strategy. This is something I have emphasized to many marketers over the years and it’s nice to see something in writing with a hard cover that that outlines this. Don’t miss David’s “5 Steps of a Lead Generation Campaign”.

Testing. A number of resources will tell you what you need to do. David emphasizes throughout his book that you are never done tweaking your tactics. You need to constantly test as a best practice for one organization may produce the opposite effects for another. You never really know what works best unless you test in lead generation. He covers testing techniques from emailing to cold calling. David believes that there are no mistakes in testing lead generation – you need to experiment to find out what works best to reach your target audience.

The Importance of Metrics. So you don’t consistently measure the effectiveness of your campaigns. David gets you. Marketers are really behind in this area and David documents in laymen’s terms how to measure the overall Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) of your campaigns as well as some of the basic metrics. Running some campaigns and hoping for the best is not a smart option. Metrics should be part of your overall strategy and something that you present to executives on a regular basis. This book will help point you in the right direction. He has included a good example of comparing the success of display ads vs. a tradeshow and how to measure the impact to demonstrate which tactic is better.

There are also many small tips that you’ll take from this book from where to setup your booth at a tradeshow to best practices on messaging for your Google Adwords campaigns. You will definitely walk away with something from this book that you can use in your day-to-day marketing campaign execution.

Where it Comes up Short

In this book David admits that lead generation is in a constant state of evolution. There is no way he can cover everything that is out there as well as all the emerging trends. There is just too much going on and David has done an admirable job. I would have liked David to have focused more on these areas:

• Marketing Automation. David makes a passing reference to some of the vendors out there including Eloqua and Marketo. I’m a bit biased here but marketing automation is a major force in lead generation today and should have had a bit more space allotted to it.

• Content Marketing. David dismisses search engine optimization as “passive marketing” and not a large aspect of lead generation. I disagree with his opinion here, as content marketing is instrumental in attracting viewers to your materials and assisting in generating leads and moving buyers through the sales and marketing funnel. This is probably an area that can be covered in a follow up in the next volume.

• Mobile. There are a lot of opportunities here that should be better acknowledged when it comes to Iphones and Android.

Another consideration for the next volume is to cover the area of advocate marketing. David dismisses the area of “word of mouth marketing” but advocates today are generating leads through referrals. These are solid leads that have a much higher conversion rate then some of the other tactics out there.

The book also could have used more illustrations and practical examples. David has done well to focus on the various social media tactics such as Twitter and Facebook but there are some good examples that could have been included to help the new marketer grasp these concepts. Again, only so much that can be fit into this book. I also disagree with the book’s emphasis on list purchases when it comes to email. I would recommend spending the time to build your lists organically then wasting money and time on list purchases that can get you in hot water with your email or marketing automation vendor.

 

My Takeaway: Read it, Live it

Let’s face it - B2B Marketing is a newer concept that is still emerging. We’ve moved beyond the traditional type of brand marketing that you see in Mad Men and marketers need to understand these new frameworks. Another name for this book should be “Lead Generation 101”. The New Rules on Lead Generation will help marketers get to that next level and should be standard reading for those studying marketing in business school and those that are newer or less experienced in this area. Happy reading!

Chad H.

@chadhorenfeldt

PS: The last chapter on integrated campaigns is a must as it ties together many of the concepts and has some good examples.

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Marketing Automation Not Just About Revenue (But it's Damn Important)

I've had the following conversation a few times with clients who have implemented marketing automation: "so now that we have marketing automation in place we want to do ROI reporting - TODAY". Jumping into ROI/closed loop reporting right away can be difficult. You need to have the right processes in place including a strong relationship between marketing and sales as well as a focus on revenue metrics to name just a few of the requirements. A recent report by the Lenskold Group and The Pedowitz Group backs this up. Don't try and do everything at once with marketing automation - create a plan that will lead to incremental success but don't stop with just simple automation. Improving your organization's overall reporting structure and focusing on marketing's contribution to top line revenue brings many added benefits.

Show me the ROI?

While companies that have implemented marketing automation demonstrate a higher adoption of ROI type reporting such as sales metrics and revenue metrics, the focus is still on cost efficiency metrics, engagement metrics, lead metrics and response metrics (see the right side of the chart below).

Source: Lenskold Group - 2012 Lead Generation Marketing Effectiveness Study

There is no question that there has been a tremendous improvement in the number of companies that are now using some ROI type reporting (4 out 10 companies according to this report). That said, the biggest improvements with marketing automation are seen in increased quality and quantity of leads. Ensuring that the marketing automation building blocks are in place including automated lead scoring and nurturing help generate trust with sales and the rest of the organization. This can help you buy the influence that is needed when trying to close the loop and gain more insight on leads after they move to sales - especially with the long sales cycles that we see with many B2B companies. ROI reporting requires marketing to create a unified lead management process with sales and to also have support from IT when needed.

Source: Lenskold Group - 2012 Lead Generation Marketing Effectiveness Study

Take it to the Next Level - It's Worth it

The bottom line is that it is worth it to get to ROI type reporting. Those companies that are using marketing automation and ROI metrics are seeing a measurable difference when compared to companies that don't use these similar metrics. For example, companies using marketing automation and ROI metrics have seen a 69% increase in marketing's revenue contribution. I would be rather a CMO at a company where I can demonstrate how my team is impacting sales and revenue growth then a CMO at the other company that has marketing automation but can't demonstrate top line revenue contribution. Marketing Automation gives you the tools to reach the promised land. If you can't see a clear path to get to ROI reporting, talk to your account team with the marketing automation vendor you work with - they should have marketing experts that can help.

Source: Lenskold Group - 2012 Lead Generation Marketing Effectiveness Study

Oh and if that wasn't enough, here are a few of the other key findings from the report for companies using ROI metrics to assess their effectiveness:

• More likely to be outgrowing competitors
• More likely to define their marketing as highly effective and efficient

There is no question that there is some tough roads ahead for companies that go down this path. What this report backs up is what I see every day. The companies that roll up their sleeves and go all in get the best results. This requires patience, determination and proper planning. Good luck to those going down this road and congratulations to those that are already reaping the rewards.

Additional Sources:

• http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2012/8955/marketing-automation-drives-b2b-lead-gen-effectiveness#ixzz27S1AHoGN
• http://www.crmsoftware.tv/videos/b2b-lead-generation-key-findings/

Video Wall Displays

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Latest B2B Marketing Trends From SiriusDecisions Summit 09

If you’re looking for an eloquently written post on how B2B marketing has changed and recommendations on what you should do, you’ve come to the wrong page. What I have done is reviewed the tweets from the latest SiriusDecisions Summit 2009 and captured points that I thought were interesting and categorized them.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to go (not without trying!) but as you’ll see from the comments below, some great stats and thoughts have been captured by attendees via Twitter (yet another reason to use Twitter).

At some point I would like to come back to each category and focus on them specifically but for now, here is some organized Twitter talk for y’all – enjoy it:

Sales and Marketing Alignment
jblock: Only 32% of sales and marketing orgs work together to define programs for existing customers. @megheuer #sds09

megheuer: Sales is protective of customers and late-stage deals; marketing needs give options, not mandates, to help at this stage #sds09 @tjaros

jblock: 72% of B2B orgs can segment the customers and prospects in their marketing database. @megheuer #sds09

jblock: Management changes served as a catalyst for greater sales and marketing integration at Aspect @thetravelingcmo #sds09


megheuer: #sds09 If leads that marketing thinks are qualified get ignored by sales, find out why/what's changed to fix it @tjaros

megheuer: Question: Marketers, do you understand the compensation structure of the team you feed leads to? No=FAIL #sds09 @tjaros


megheuer: #sds09 "whole sales team is motivated to make this work" so positive changes in marketing really make a difference --Perry Dembner


megheuer: #sds09 If leads that marketing thinks are qualified get ignored by sales, find out why/what's changed to fix it @tjaros

megheuer: #sds09 Ennis: "Get everyone clear on marketing's contribution to revenue" and use a common language to track, explain it

megheuer: #sds09 @joegalvin says sales 2.0 is really about the dominance of buying cycles and increasing productivity through sales readiness

megheuer: #sds09 Only19% of attendees have sales and marketing collaborate on sales playbooks; 58% don't create them at all

megheuer: #sds09 Goal of sales playbooks is increased productivity: More opportunity, shorter sales cycles, higher win rates

megheuer: #sds09 It's not a new selling paradigm, it's a new buying paradigm, powered by technology @joegalvin says

cahidalgo: #sds09- 59% of attendees do not believe their sales and marketing are aligned. amyblack: #sds09 how do you increase adoption? Process drives productivity - start with process then implement technology.

Lead Nurturing

jblock: @tjaros: If you get one deal out of a reconstituted leads program, it's worth the effort. #sds09

jblock: 5%-10% of leads that are sitting in your CRM system as "dead" can become real opportunities if put into a nurturing program. #sds09

cahidalgo: #sds09- Tony Jaros - lead nurturing business rules must be established by BOTH marketing and sales in order to be effective.

megheuer: #sds09 "When leads are actively disqualified, that' a good thing- you can address that lead in an automated way to nurture it" –@tjaros

megheuer: #sds09 When a quantity function (1-and-done marketing) feeds a quality-focused function (sales), leads fall out at top of funnel @tjaros

megheuer: #sds09 21% of attendees have a lead nurturing program in place now; twice that number are "working on it"

Marketing Effectiveness Measurement

megheuer: Biggest change in marketing results: About a 10% drop in closed deals over the last year @tjaros #sds09

megheuer: #sds09 @jneeson reports 55% of marketing inquiries generated via the Web today; email 19%; events 15%, direct mail 11% (averages)

megheuer: Great metrics to track from CyberSource: # of days to close a deal and # of marketing touches to close #sds09

megheuer: "We know that sometimes approximate is good enough to get us where we're going" for marketing reports -Brenda Kring #sds09

megheuer: Need to be able to measure overall ROI and also activities, to align them with your overall strategy #sds09 @lazgonzalez

MarketingFuel: 52% of attendees dont track conversion rates [in their sales pipeline] and 77% dont track sales cycle lengthi n the sales pipeline #sds09 jblock: Only 24% of orgs have a closed loop process between sales and marketing regarding detailed info on opportunities. #sds09

kdewitte27: #sds09 Org's that have embraced a closed loop approach=+21% profit and +24% rev growth vs -6% and 0% for those that haven't (3 yr timeframe)

amyblack: Deborah Nelson at HP says that her "best in class" roi target is $70 earned for every dollar spent. #sds09

Sales/Marketing Funnel

stharris: #sds09 Most case studies are after purchase. Why not have one on Why they switched? Case studies across the demand waterfall. (Tony Jaros)

cahidalgo: #sds09: TJaros- "The demand waterfall is as much about human behavior as it is numbers." Human change management is part of process change

megheuer: Omniture improved # of opportunities by 5X, marketing's pipeline contribution by 7X based on linking brand to demand #sds09

megheuer: "Not about how we measure progression of a sales opportunity, but how we impact the progression of an opportunity" -@joegalvin at #sds09

jeffernst: #sds09 @jneeson This year sales is not just telling marketing we need more leads, we need marketing's help advancing our pipeline opps.

jblock: Focus is not so much at the top of the funnel; it has shifted to pipeline acceleration and sales enablememt. #sds09

Channel Marketing

jblock: Partners need guidance from their suppliers to run effective multi-touch campaigns. @lazgonzalez #sds09

cahidalgo: #sds09-common definition of a lead expands beyond direct sales and marketing and must also extend to the channel.

kdewitte27: #sds09 trend in channel demand gen strategy: let the partner create his leads and have the vendor support them with the right tools.

megheuer: #sds09 Channel programs shifting $ to supplier-to-customer programs, delivering message themselves, not waiting for partner @lazgonzalez

MarketingFuel: 83% of #sds09 attendees have absolutely no visibility into Channel marketing campaigns and effectiveness. Do partners really want you to?

Marketing Automation

megheuer: #sds09 Marketing automation is a requirement for best-practice performance says @jneeson

megheuer: #sds09 Prediction from @jneeson is by 2015, up to 50% of b-to-b marketers will deploy marketing automation


Marketing Structure

cedwardbrice: #sds09 more than half of audience making organizational changes to their marketing functions

kingsol: #sds09 Common theme between Deb (HP) and Buell (IBM) on creating single marketing themes for global deployment. Develop Once, Run Anywhere [DORA]

megheuer: #sds09 "Cajoling and good citizenship did not work" to drive use of run-once-use-everywhere programs; Centralized org structure did

megheuer: #sds09 By 2015, dominant marketing model will be an architecture of plays and tactics in an integrated, multi-dimensional approach

megheuer: #sds09 Attendees report marketing ops (38%), field mktg (36%) are areas of marketing programs that will change the most by 2015

megheuer: #sds09 The marketing demand center has advisory, execution and technical resources--more value-add than execution only @jneeson

megheuer: #sds09 Most attendees report their marketing org structure is a hybrid model (43%); 2nd most common is centralized (32%)

megheuer: #sds09 Leading organizations invest in marketing skills and address gaps in technology, process and programs that hurt progress

Social Media

cedwardbrice: #sds09 B2B organizations with a coordinated reputation strategy gain an average of 40 percent more inquires

brainshark: #sds09 Create content in smaller chunks that can be reused @jblock Convergence of Social and Traditional Media

megheuer: Need to have a baseline--do an annual audit of communications and social media activities to see what works/doesn't @jblock #sds09

megheuer: "We can't stick our heads in the sand anymore and not monitor what's going on in social media" -@jblock #sds09

megheuer: @jblock: Use a combination of social media and traditional awareness tools to improve leverage and reach of assets #sds09

amyblack: #sds09 Social media is cheap (technology) but expensive from a human resources stand point - it takes time and effort to do it well [ Amen!]

megheuer: #sds09 Only a small number of btob organizations have a coherent strategy for social media says @jblock


amyblack: #sds09 Communities are the fastest growing social media segment within b2b orgs - blog adoption is still higher ( 33% vs. 29%)

amyblack: #sds09 prediction that social media will become more a function of product marketing as that group needs to have a dialogue with customers

Here are some quick thoughts that I’ve jotted down (more later - just went through 25+ pages of Twitter search results and need to reflect more on this):

• Inbound marketing is and will be extremely crucial go forward but marketers need to develop strategies to target leads that are deeper in the sales/marketing funnel – especially in this economy
• Importance of lead nurturing (no need to say more right now)
  
• No mention of lead scoring - any comment on this from summit attendees?
  
• Suppliers are looking for ways to help out their partners
• Social media in B2B marketing is still at its early stages but expect this to grow enormously for the next summit
• The key across all of these topics is sales/marketing alignment. It may also be the most difficult part.
  

Thanks to all of the twitters who passionately twitted at the conference and gave people like me some semblance of being there. Of course, muchos gracias to @siriusdecisions for bringing together great presentations and great people.

Chad H.
@chadhorenfeldt

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Technorati Tags: B2B Marketing,sales marketing alignment,lead management,lead nurturing,Twitter,BtoB,social media,demand waterfall,marketing automation,marketing ROI

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The Recession is Here - Time to Become an Eco-Marketer

When I say that you should become an eco-marketer, I don't mean that you should add some corny green recycle image to your website (who would do that?) or support a "Save the Whales" campaign. Although I'm a big supporter of environmental issues and started my career running an environmental organization, I would like to focus on eco-marketing in terms of demand creation.

I focused my research this week on how I can help my customers build out a demand waterfall as defined by the smart people over at SiriusDecisions. During my research, I stumbled upon a great article by the Canadian Marketing Blog called "2009 B-to-B Demand Creation Trends" eh (Canadian joke). It's here where I came across the term eco-marketer and I wanted to build on the excellent analysis that they have already provided. However, after I drank 10 cups of coffee, I've created my own version of the eco-marketer. Here are my three Rs that I recommend to become the best eco-marketer you can be in a down economy:

The Three Rs of Marketing and a Bonus R

1. Reuse: In a down economy you need to reuse all of your marketing resources that you have out there and maximize your marketing investments. Here are my recommendations:
   
   • Reuse your webinars. If you have run a live webinar, post the archived version on your website behind a form. It's been proven that archived webinars can generate more leads then the actual live event.
   • Reuse your email newsletters by ensuring they are posted on your website. This is a simple one but it's surprising how many e-newsletters remain only in email format. I would recommend to post in on your website and even create an RSS feed. With an RSS feed, you can promote in your email footers and it can be re-used by other bloggers and companies. You should even consider creating a blog and reposting your newsletter articles on it.
   • Reuse your live presentations. If anyone from your company or your customers are speaking on behalf of your company ensure that you film them and add them to the resource area of your website. You can even just post the slides or the speech text. Don't miss these great opportunities to build marketing content.
     
   • Use social media techniques such as Twitter and YouTube to maximize the effect of your webinars, videos and white papers. For example, you can mention on your twitter profile that you've just released a new blog post or newsletter. Think of social media as a big marketing ecosystem (see, I am focusing on the environment) and make sure you take advantage of all the tools out there. In this way, you can reuse your marketing materials as much as possible.
     
   • Reuse all of your marketing materials in your lead nurturing efforts. Having the right content for automated lead nurturing programs can be the most difficult part of a lead nurturing campaign. However, many companies have all of the materials they need already created. Even though some may be dated, if the materials are good they should be reused. You don't need to just focus on pushing out new content, you probably have some gold nuggets that may be hidden on your site.
     
     For your nuturing campaigns, create a document that outlines all of the marketing content that you have and map this to the buying process of your target audiences that you have identified (assuming you have created defined marketing segments).
     
     You would be amazed at how you can reuse the content you already have (blog posts, newsletter articles, industry white papers, demos) and create a specific and defined automated program that is designed to target a specific segment and has a specific marketing goal.
     
   • Create marketing campaigns that can be reused. For example, if you have a large marketing team, create processes so that you standardize your email and landing page templates. Tweak them as necessary based on your successes (or failures). Another example is to create automated program templates such as an event management or lead nurturing template. These templates can be copied and reused.
     
   • Reuse (and abuse) your whole company. If you have Jimmy from the development team who did a lunch and learn on how he coded a solution that will benefit your clients, get him to write it down and post it on a blog. If Sarah from your Support team came up with a great solution to solve a customer problem, video tape her and post it on your site or include it in your next newsletter. MAXIMIZE YOUR ENTIRE COMPANY IN YOUR MARKETING EFFORTS. Did I just write in caps?
     
     
2. Reduce: Not only should B2B companies reduce the amount of lead leakage where leads are being lost is the sales/marketing funnel by tightening up processes, the following also needs the be considered:
   
   • Reduce the amount of communication that you're sending to leads. Are you saying to yourself "Are you on drugs Chad? Why would I want to send less communications when I need to keep up the number of leads to my sales team?". In a down economy you need to work on further segmenting your campaigns and matching your communications to the right person at the right time. Any emails, direct mail etc... send should be based on a person's interest and the stage of the demand waterfall that they are in. This type of eco-marketing will achieve the best results and ensure that you conserve (another eco-friendly term!) you're ever shrinking opt-in database in the tough times ahead.
   • Reduce the amount of time it takes for qualified leads to be followed up with. An automated lead nurturing process will help deal with leads that are qualified but not yet ready to buy and thus reducing leads falling through the cracks but a process needs to be put in place to put the best leads on the desks of your sales team so they'll follow up right away. The best solution for this is a lead scoring process that scores leads based on their explicit information (industry, job role etc...) and their implicit activity (offers they've downloaded, emails they've responded to). With this type of process in place, you can ensure that your sales team is "cutting through the crap" and following up with the best leads before your competitors.
   • Reduce the complexity to getting access to information on your website. Optimize your landing pages by removing any unnecessary fields. Ask for more information only if it makes sense to the potential lead. Consider building up a profile of the lead over time. This requires more effort as you need to think through the stages on getting this information but it is worth it.
     
   
   
3. Recycle: By recycling leads that are in your sales and marketing funnel you will get the most out of your marketing investments. Just because a potential lead attends a webinar and doesn't respond to a sales call doesn't mean they're not interested in buying from your company. An eco-marketer may want to further investigate SiriusDecisions methodologies around calling webinar attendees "inquiries" rather then leads and not passing these on to sales until they've been further qualified through an automated marketing program. In fact, SiriusDecisions has demonstrated that webinars are typically viewed at the beginning stages of the buying process. This is just one example of how marketers need to go beyond lead generation to concentrate on the lead funnel and developing strategies to move leads through this funnel.
   
   Recycle your "inactive leads". Recycling doesn't just include those leads that are not "sales ready" or not yet ready to buy. You need to have automated processes that will detect those leads that you've been sending emails to (or other forms of communication like direct mail) and haven't responded. This means that they haven't visited your website, filled out a form or responded to your marketing communications. You can recycle these leads by placing them in a separate automated program with messages that are specific to this segment. This may include an email with a survey asking these "inactives" what they would like to receive from your company or a request to opt back in with a targeted offer. You may decide that it's time to take some of these leads to the curb but at least you have tried your hardest to maximize those leads that came through your front door.
   
   
4. A bonus R is "Remove". Remove any of the following:
   
   • Remove barriers between the sales and marketing team. Everyone needs to work together. Think peace and joy on earth (just like a real environmentalist).
   • Remove campaigns or tactics that are not working. To do this, you need a mechanism in place to measure every aspect of your marketing efforts. This goes back to my original premise of researching the demand waterfall. Having a defined process in place where you can measure the success of your marketing efforts at each stage of the sales marketing funnel is crucial. For example, if the conversion rate of a Google AdWords campaign is failing as the effort to turn these "inquiries" into MQLs (marketing qualified leads) is too expensive and takes too long, remove it. Focus on sources that are bringing in more qualified leads.
   • Remove crappy data and automate the process if possible. You will probably have fewer leads coming in the top of your pipeline so you can concentrate on creating processes that will remove contacts that should never hit your database. This may include contacts with bad email addresses, your competitors etc... You can also look at your database for data that is inconsistent and clean it up. Where possible, you can fix this data using automated data tools. For example, it may be possible to standardize contacts that have various job titles or contacts that have different versions of a country (USA, U.S.A., United States etc...). Bad data prevents you from further segmenting your database. Clean out the crap and ensure it stays as clean as possible.
     
   • Remove or punish people that have not bought in. Relating this back to the environment, in Toronto we've implemented a new program for home owners that taxes you based on the garbage that you put at the curb. If you follow the three R's and reduce your trash, you save money. If you don't want to get with the program, you'll pay for it with your wallet. It's fairly straightforward.
     
     As an eco-marketer, you need to get the senior people bought in on your new eco-marketing mantra. If you have sales people that don't want to participate, have them penalized. If you have marketing folks that can't see the forest through the trees, remove them. It's obviously easier said then done but that's why you need executive buy-in.
     

I'm sure you can add here to my points above and I implore you to do that by leaving some comments. Good luck to you during some tough times ahead and be the best eco-marketer you can be.

Chad H.

PS - Here are some additional resources I used in my research (let me know if you have other useful resources)

• Lead recycling means nothing wasted
• Funnelnomics: Accelerate your marketing and sales funnel to drive growth and profitability
• B2B Lead: 10 tips for marketing and sales alignment

PPS - Here are some tips to reduce the amount of water you use in your home.

Technorati tags: eco-marketer, sirusdecisions, lead nuturing, scoring, water conservation, reduce, Reuse, Recyle, demand gerenation, marketing automation, Toronto garbage laws, waterfall, sales and funnel, twitter

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How do Marketers Measure Online Marketing?

While there is a big push these days to get to the true ROI of your online marketing campaigns, we don't seem to be there yet.

According to a Penton Media Custom Research study commissioned by PROMO Magazine, click-throughs and response rates are still mostly used to measure the success of marketing campaigns.

Measuring Email ROI

On another note, the DMA found that e-mail's ROI will reach $45.65 for every dollar spent in 2008.

Anna Chernis of the DNA claimed: "E-mail produces the highest response rate for lead generation —especially for house campaigns—of direct mail methods we have studied,"

The one item to note is that in 2005, email delivered $57.25 for every dollar spent on it so there is a downward trend here.

Bottom line: You can produce with email but in order to secure your marketing budget, you need to prove that sales are directly related to your marketing efforts. Can you really prove marketing's effectiveness based on click-throughs? Here is one way you can use to improve the way you track your marketing campaigns using a closed-loop approach.

In addition, email ROI is decreasing but there are ways to leverage email with other marketing channels such as search, direct mail, podcasts and videos to help increase the effectiveness of email.

Happy marketing!

Chad H.

PS: Here's a related article over on ClickZ called: Why E-Mail ROI Is So Amazing

Tags: DMA, email ROI, marketing metrics

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One way to tackle closed loop marketing

Now that the summer is behind us I feel that I have a few extra pounds from the BBQs and beers on the patios. I've promised myself to go for at least 2 morning runs during the week and a trip the gym on the weekend. I'm still working on the 2 runs per week but I'm getting there. I know that if I don't go, I see the results of the hamburger that I had for lunch the next morning on the scale. When I do go for a run I see the positive results - great motivation to keep on exercising.

If I compare my exercise achievements to "closed loop marketing," I get half-way as I am able to track if I've lost weight on my scale but I don't know what exactly contributed to this weight loss. Was it the distance and intensity of my run or was it my avoidance of the free donuts that are passed out at the office? It's this unknown factor that contributes to your success that is the "magic number" or as Rod Tidwell in Jerry McGuire would call it "the Quan".

This post is not meant to define or re-define the term "closed loop marketing". It focuses on a few methods that are used to track various marketing initiatives which can be rolled up to larger marketing reports and/or dashboards. This type of reporting can guide marketers to determine which campaigns and channels are more successful then others by tying marketing initiatives to closed deals.

Closed Loop Marketing And Query Strings

Query strings are those weird characters you see in a URL. Here's an easy example: Go to Google and type in "Toronto Maple Leafs". On the right hand side, you'll probably see a StubHub ad (unless they removed it after people reading this clicked on it too much which I highly doubt). Click on the ad. Don't get alarmed at how expensive the seats are - that's not why you are here. Check out the long URL: http://www.stubhub.com/tix11-ticketcenter/toronto-maple-leafs-tickets/
?gtse=goog&gtkw=Toronto%20Maple%20Leafs

The query string part of the URL (typically found after a "?" or "&") is gtse and gtkw. The query string values are "goog" and "Toronto%20Maple%20Leafs". In this case it seems that StubHub is tracking the search engine which is Google and the search engine keywords which are "Toronto Maple Leafs".

In a finely tuned closed marketing system, StubHub will save the search engine and keyword query string data to the profile of the people that purchase tickets. StubHub can then evaluate which search engines and keywords resulted in the most sales and invest appropriately.

Closed loop marketing seems easy eh? It isn't. This was a fairly straightforward B2C transactional example. What about the other marketing channels like email and my website? Query strings can help out there as well!

Moving Beyond Search - Query Strings and email, website, online ads and direct mail

You can take the example above and use it for your other marketing channels. For example, on your website, consider using query strings for links on your home page or category pages. This will allow you to track the source if web visitors downloaded a white paper or purchased a product. The same goes for email. If you add a query string to your web links, you can save the query string data to the web profile of the email recipient, if they click through and fill out a form.

They key to this closed loop reporting method is:
a. Having a marketing team that is bought into using this method. This includes the bandwidth to create query string values to track each individual campaigns
b. The technology to capture the query string data so that it can be reported on

Closed Loop Marketing, Query Strings, B2B, and Your CRM

With B2B, many sales cycles are prolonged and may take weeks or months before a deal is closed. In addition, your sales are not transactional - i.e. responding to an email and buying some Leaf tickets. Therefore, the deals take longer to close, more individuals on the client side are involved and you typically have your sales force that you need to work with (however, I'm focusing mostly here on online lead generation).

In this case, you need to sync up your query strings values to an object in your CRM - typically called a campaign object. Campaigns can represent an online webinar, a trade show, a demo or case study download, a request for contact etc... With the CRM salesforce.com, you can associate Campaigns to a Lead or Contact. Campaigns are then associated with Opportunities (potential deals) and when they are closed, marketing gets the credit if a Campaign was associated with the Opportunity. Which Campaigns get associated with the Opportunity is way out of scope for this post.

Here is the takeaway: You can use query strings to represent campaigns that can be recorded in your CRM. You can then implement closed loop reporting as you can run reports on the opportunities that closed and the campaigns that were associated to them. Again, you need a marketing and sales team that has bought into this concept, the resources to create campaigns and query strings that are integrated with your online strategies and the technology that will allow you to capture this data and easily sync it with a CRM.

Are there easier ways to do this? Definitely and the technology is constantly evolving. In fact, I should have an update for you soon on different ways to perform closed loop marketing. As I mentioned, I wanted to present one way to do this.

Now that I may have confused some of you, I'm going for a run.

Chad H.

PS - Here are some additional resources on closed loop marketing:

• Closed Loop Marketing: Making a Match Between Sales and Marketing
• Webcast: Closed-Loop Lead Generation & Management

Tags: closed loop marketing, CRM, salesforce.com, query strings, Jerry McGuire, Go leafs go!

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