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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Give web visitors the resources they need - Customized Google

Raise your hand if you answer yes to all of the following questions:

• My company has a website
• We have great resources on our website
• Some of these resources help our customers and prospects learn more about what we do and affect the buying process
• It's difficult to find these resources on our site
  

Your hand raised? I've got a fairly simple solution. If you're on my blog (that's directed to my RSS reader friends), you'll notice a shiny new Google search box at the top of the site. This is an example of AJAX (new technology that doesn't require the browser to reload). Try it out! Search for anything you want (here's a good one: "Google Rocks"). Notice how the search results appear as a layer over the current page - isn't that cool? What I like about this is that you don't need to worry about the design of the search results pages and you get the power and authority of Google on your site. In addition, with this Web 2.0 technology, you never leave the page you are on so it's a better web experience.

The best news is that it's easy to implement Google Custom Search Engine and it's FREE. Here's what you do:

• Go to: http://www.google.com/coop/cse/
• Click on "Create a custom search engine"
• Fill out the form fields on the next page (add in any number of sites you may want to index)
• Within the search results hosting option section, select the new "overlay" option. The drawback for bloggers is that you can't get Adsense but hey, if I was blogging for the money I would have quit long ago.
• Copy the code and paste it on your site
• You can customize this but I really didn't do any customization and it looks fine.
  

There is also a business upgrade for $100 a year. I've set this search engine up for a non-profit site (because I make tons off this blog - heavy sarcasm) which means that no ads will appear in the search results. Businesses will probably want to purchase the business edition as you'll not want ads on your internal search engine (could be competitors). I think it may be the best $100 your company has spent. If you don't have a site search, you're missing out on an opportunity to help web visitors to find information on your web site and better leverage your web and overall marketing investments. The easier it is to find the right information, the better chance at conversions and eventually closed deals. I haven't tested this out but you can probably use Google Analytics to track what people are searching on and additional data. If you have an enterprise site, you may want to look at some of the more feature heavy tools out there like Inquira.

Let me know if you have questions or tried it out.

Chad H

Technorati tags: Google Custom Search Engine, AJAX

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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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How to Adjust Your Landing Pages For Search

Does your website have a home page? Ok, that's a stupid question but because of the preponderance of use of search engines in browsing the web, home pages are just not the same as they once were. A site can now have multiple home pages depending on what search query was used to end up on your website. Is your website ready?

I was reading a great article on Imedia called Websites: The Secret to Landing Pages and Shopping Carts by Joseph Carrabis who pointed out a great point: Landing pages for visitors that enter your site from a search engine must also serve as home pages. "Joe" (if I can call you that) believes that when users search for something in particular and enter your site, the content should be centered around this topic which would form a mini-site or microsite (a subset of the greater website). Joe states: "Thus, the entry page that focuses on a specific car or hand lotion or food item or whatever must also serve as the "homepage" to a microsite. This microsite may be one, two or at most three pages within a larger website system..."

These new home pages (or "side pages" as I call them) should be very specific and geared to the search query that led them to that page. The content should be easy to follow and the user should be able to quickly decide if this company can help them or if they need to try again. If the company is of interest, it should be fairly easy to request for additional information.

Joe inspired me to see if companies are gearing their websites around search and if they are creating these new types of home pages. I've used Google and randomly chose the search query "software integration". I've selected a few of the paid search results from this search and reported my findings below.

Search Landing Pages (Side Pages) That Need Improvement

I've learned from my research that marketers need to distinguish between different types of landing pages. There are the landing pages that companies use to drive people to from emails and direct mail and there are landing pages used for search results and other forms of online advertising. There really are different best practices for each of these.

Let's look at the first example from my search on "software integration" from BEA Software:

I've highlighted the areas in the image above that I felt are important. Here are the positives:

• The headline and copy is crisp and concise. The web visitor will know after a few seconds if this is something that they are interested in
• It's easy to request additional information and all that is required is to fill out two fields to complete the web form.
  

The main drawback of the page is that the copy is geared to someone who visited this page from another page on the BEA website or from a BEA email. The first line says "Thanks for your interest in our white paper for developing the organization & governance plan". That doesn't make sense coming from a Google search query! I never expressed interest in this white paper. BEA seems to have re-purposed this landing page and the result is a poor one.

What if I was interested in something else from BEA? Now what? Unlike an email landing page where you're typically driving someone to a very specific action (such as signing up for an event), search results landing pages are different. While the visitor should be driven to a certain action (such as requesting additional information), additional options should be included to allow for browsing other areas of your website (like a home page but coming through a side door and hence why I call these side pages).

In this case, the web form was very short and probably worked. However, a web form may seem obtrusive to someone who just came in from a search engine. Before someone divulges personal information, you need to earn that trust and providing valuable information first without first displaying a form may be a better way to go (I'll let you determine this from your testing).

Here's another example from Agilent:


This landing page does a few things right. It has a call to action right at the top which outlines how to purchase the product and has a good first paragraph that summarizes the product. The problem is that there is too much extra text on the page. For example, there is a "What's new" section. If this was setup as a real microsite, the "What's New" section would be on a separate page. This main page should focus on outlining the features of this solution in a clear and concise way while providing options to the web visitor to explore additional information on this product.

Search Landing Pages (Side Pages) That get it Right

The following search landing pages are worth looking at perhaps mimicking. The first example is from Cisco:

The content on this landing page gets right to the point and it starts with a great headline. Using bulleted points also helps the reader quickly scan the page.

What I like even more about this page are the call to action options that it provides at the end of the copy (but without the need to scroll on a typical monitor configuration). If you're ready to download the product, there is a section that says "I'm ready" and if you're not ready just yet you can select the "I'm interested" registration. The fact that it spells this out for you and uses clear images to delineate the two sections is extremely cool. That way, Cisco is accounting for two types of visitors - the serious and the non-serious. In addition, Cisco has provided the top-level navigation if this page doesn't satisfy the users' needs.

The last example from my research (excuse the pun) is from a company called Adeptia:
This was another good example of content that is clear and concise. In addition, I liked how the product name was highlighted at the top of the page which allowed those web visitors that already knew the product name to go to that page. For the rest of us, the page provided examples and benefits of the product while providing call to actions such as viewing a demo or case study without the need to scroll. The page also allowed you to browse other areas of the Adeptia website to view their other solutions.

Landing Page Conclusions

Here is a summary of my findings:

• Keep the content clear and use headers and bullets to break it into chunks that are easily digestible.
  
• Only provide content that is directly relevant to fulfilling the desired action on the page. If you have additional content that is related to the product or service, consider providing a link to it (for example, updates to the product)
  
• Call to actions need to be viewable without scrolling
• Provide multiple call to actions. Since people are coming from a search engine, you don't know if they're in the final stages of the buying cycle or just at the beginning. The Cisco example provides for both scenarios.
• Consider not placing a form on the first page that a web visitor sees when coming from a search engine. If you do, keep it short.
• Allow web visitors the opportunity to browse other areas of your website. As mentioned above, search landing pages (side pages) are side doors to your content. These are people that are not coming through the front door but may have randomly happened upon your site. If your call to actions don't appeal to them, allow them the opportunity to view other areas of your website.

I hope you have found this informative. Feel free to use the term "side pages" and be sure to continuously test and optimize your landing pages to get the best results.

Chad H.

PS: I want to apologize in advance to the companies listed above for spending their valuable marketing dollars and for my abusive click fraud.
PPS: You can take this concept beyond paid search to organic search - are your pages fully optimized to drive web visitors down a certain path?

Tags: Google, side pages, software integration, landing pages best practices, Imedia, search engine optimization, SEO

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Learning About Web Analytics: Part I

If you're a true marketer or a hard-core blogger (or both) you have to be into web analytics. Ok, you don't but you should and I have found some good resources.

Bloggers for the most part write because they want to be heard and your analytics justify the time that you sit at your keyboard (for the most part although my wife still needs convincing and web stats, well they just don't do it).

You may like to monitor your site traffic to see which keywords and referrers are bringing traffic to your blog or who is on your blog right now (hey - I see that you're reading this and I thank you from the bottom of my keyboard). It's also cool to see which countries are reading your blog. I wrote a post about free feed icons and I was receiving traffic from all over the world and was featured on many Asian sites - it was quite interesting but I couldn't understand the comments on those blogs. I also had a pleasant surprise last week when I found out that Brian Carrol over at Start With a Lead was linking to my blog. This caused a bit of a traffic spike and I thought my blog was broken. In this way, my blog is similar to the thinking process that an e-marketer goes through on a daily basis (or should be going through!!) : "What actions that I take will drive traffic to my site and increase conversions." Examining and understanding web analytics is key to this.

As a blogger, one of my goals is help others in marketing (specifically B2B marketing) better understand the e-marketing landscape. A very good newsletter that I subscribe to is the ROI Revolution News that is created by Google to promote its services - specifically Google Analytics. The format of this e-newsletter is interesting as instead of pushing people from an email to a regular web page, it takes people to the ROI Revolution blog. I think you will be seeing more and more of this type of format as blogs maximize the SEO effectiveness of your content (I wrote about this previously). And here's a saying that you should adhere to: If Google is doing it, it's worth trying.

I'm new to Web Analytics, Where do I start?

There are many different places to begin. With web analytics (just like SEO), it's not enough to understand the terminology. You need to jump in with two feet. If you just want to get your feet wet though , you may want to start by subscribing to ROI Revolution News. What I like are some of "Analytics Basics" articles that provide overviews to some of the key areas of web analytics that you need to understand.

For example, some marketers may be worried that their web stats are skewed because of a recent Jupiter report article that says that 58% of their users delete their cookies. This can affect historical data that you may be tracking on a certain person. The article explains the difference between first party and third party cookies as it's mostly third party and not first party cookies that users are deleting. The article of course plugs Google Analytics as it uses only first party cookies.

Google also offers free tutorials on how to use Google Analytics. What I recommend you do is to start up a blog perhaps through blogger and sign up for the tutorial. In this way, you can test out what you learn from the tutorial. One of the keys that you will learn as you get into web analytics is testing is crucial. What offers, content and/or keywords are driving content to your site? Google Analytics is also free so it's definitely worth having a look at. In the real world analytics testing is like testing out different methods to prevent your new puppy from messing up your new carpet. Eventually you will hit pay dirt but things may get a bit messy on the way there.

At the moment, I'm in the process of moving so you may not hear from me for a little while but I plan to write "Learning About Web Analytics: Part II" in which I want to focus on some key metrics that you should be keeping track of on your site. I've just finished reading a book called "3G Marketing" and found some interesting information that I'll share.

In the meantime, please let me know other resources on web analytics that you have found helpful. I've heard that Web Analytics Demystified: A Marketer's Guide to Understanding How Your Web Site Affects Your Business is also a good start.

Until next time,

Chad H.

PS - For web analytics, one of the most important concepts is to understand that a point in time is irrelevant (i.e. number of pages on a particular day). What is crucial are the trends. Are your site visitors going up over time or going down? Why is that? Is it becuase your packing up all of your stuff and moving and don't have time to write? :)

Tags: Google Analytics, e-newsletters, ROI Revolution News, web stats, web analytics for beginners, 3rd party cookies

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