Posted by Megan Heuer on Fri, Mar 26, 2010 @ 10:20 AM
If data is the lifeblood of demand creation, shouldn’t it have a heart monitor attached? I talk with many companies about their reporting and dashboards, and data is rarely part of the conversation. That should change. The best leading indicator of demand creation throughput is the effectiveness of tactics designed to add contacts to the database. When the focus is only on downstream results, including conversions and marketing qualified leads, it is more difficult to pinpoint problems upstream that clog the flow of data. Adding data to regular reporting allows another level of diagnosis, and some of the problems it finds can have a huge impact.
Take the case of an organization that invests heavily in inbound marketing activities to draw people to its website to request assets. The marketing operations team gathers reports from the web team, which show the number of visits to the site and the pages viewed. What they don’t see is how many of those web visitors hit a form page, completed the form, and were added to the database as marketable contacts. They also don’t see how many of the contacts who came in via inbound tactics fit the most desirable demographics for marketing to attract. Marketing ops may also get reports from the field marketing team or demand center, showing click-throughs and conversions on emails, and all leads created by campaign. They also don’t see how many of the individuals who clicked through an emails and saw a form, but did not complete it and were not added to the database; and if the name came from a list rental, then that’s money out the window. And, there’s no ability with this reporting to monitor on a cumulative basis how many of the most desirable contacts (or all contacts for that matter) are opting out and the impact that has on database growth.
The solution is adding at least one key performance indicator (KPI) plus a few key metrics around database health. Together, they provide the basic foundation:
- Net monthly database growth: Percentage of records gained minus percentage of records lost (opt-outs, bad data, etc.)
- Total percentage of usable records in the database
- Percentage of new contacts added each month
- Percentage of contacts lost each month, separated by opt-out/unsubscribe percentage vs. lost to data issues (bounce, bad address, etc.)
- Percentage of those who reach a form and complete it
If the organization described above was tracking these metrics, then the marketing ops team would identify the fact that specific web forms have low completion rates and need to be revised and tested for better results to improve database growth to take better advantage of good inbound traffic levels. They would also be able to see that specific inbound activities are attracting contacts from a different segment than the one intended. They might also sound the alarm on increasing opt-outs that appear to be tied to specific third-party data sources. This knowledge can save money and improve effectiveness, and that’s the definition of good reporting.
Your action item: Add data health metrics to your dashboard and let it be known the doctor is in.
Posted by Jonathan Block on Fri, Mar 19, 2010 @ 10:18 AM
Nothing says “I love you” quite like stuffing the inboxes of your public relations (PR) mailing list with the latest press releases and announcements regarding your products and services, despite their relevancy to each recipient. If you believe this statement then most likely you view the role of PR as primarily a broadcast function and spend your communications dollars on awareness and announcements instead of alignment and leverage to support demand generation strategies.
While relying principally on a PR broadcasting strategy may be effective if you’re selling to a small, known universe within a specialized industry, most organizations are under-utilizing the PR function within their demand creation efforts. Particularly in a down economy, the more we can leverage and reuse our PR efforts across the full sales and marketing continuum the greater the impact.
When PR is merely the public mouthpiece for an organization, its ability to deliver and demonstrate value to a company is limited, particularly in trying economic times. While broadcasting an endless stream of press releases was once the key component of driving awareness, it now only serves to point out just how out of touch an organization can be to its target audience. Leveraging social media by simply using it as another channel to push your out your message is not the way to evolve the PR function; instead, fitting PR efforts into a highly integrated strategy that leverages its activities into the overall focus of sales and marketing is the sure path to success.
Posted by Jay Gaines on Fri, Mar 12, 2010 @ 09:22 AM
As I outlined in my previous post Matching Brand Promises To Customer Reality," with the power shift in the business/buyer relationship that social media and unprecedented access to information has brought about, it is more evident than ever that B2B marketers no longer have complete control over how there organization is perceived — rather, much of this power now lies with the empowered customer. So, what robust brand and customer experience management strategies can a B2B business leader use to ensure that their brands match the reality of their company? The following strategies extend beyond logos, words and colors, and should set the stage for a successful re-evaluation of the brand and customer experience management initiative:
- Customer experience management is ultimately a marketing responsibility. Marketing is clearly best suited to understand the expectations their messages create as it is within marketing that the brand and its associated promise is often defined, refined and projected out to the world. Also, customer experience is increasingly defined by marketing touches in the form of content, newsletters, websites, direct mail, email, events, tweets, customer communities and much more. Finally, developing and maintaining great relationships with prospective buyers starts with marketing and is an inherent part of the entire marketing process because relationships are exactly what leading marketers use to convert unknown prospects into engaged and sales-ready leads. The CMO, working closely with counterparts in sales, customer service and product development, should assume leadership of B2B customer experience management due to this intertwined link between marketing success and an exceptional buyer/customer experience — one that marketing is most likely to ensure matches the brand promise of the organization.
- Analyze and understand customer experience. Since the goal of customer experience management is to move customers from satisfied to loyal, and from loyal to advocate, the best place to begin analysis is simple customer loyalty surveys and in-depth interviews. Utilizing open-ended questions along with quantitative questions in surveys and interviews will help establish a baseline and identify specific strengths and issues. Also, identify ways to gather “operational feedback” that comes through the normal course of conducting business, including customer service, sales, CRM data and comments left on your Website. Finally, monitoring customer comments and discussions about your company in customer communities and other online social networks is another relatively easy way to continuously analyze customer experience and perceptions. If you don’t currently have a customer community, starting corporate/executive blogs can open up fruitful conversations between customer and business that can also streamline customer experience research.
- Manage the expectations your messages create. In a business environment defined by social media and empowered customers who expect transparency over-promising has gone from unwise to high-risk as significant promise/reality gaps will be ruthlessly exposed in customer communities or other business social networks. Mapping your primary messages and brand promise to what you learn about your customers’ perception of their own experiences working with your organization goes a long way toward identifying significant gaps. In general, be vigilant to avoid creating expectations that can’t or shouldn’t be met by focusing messages on core competencies that differentiate your organization or offering and matter most to your customers.
- Proactively turn customers into champions with a customer advisory board. B2B marketers should consider initiating a customer advisory board as a crucial component of the customer experience strategy. Customer advisory boards can help to flush out any troubles that buyers might be experiencing with the company, as well as highlight and improve what the organization is doing well. Also, by engaging customers in defining processes and initiatives to improve their own experience they will quickly adopt a sense of ownership, which will help significantly with managing risk and mitigating communications crisis if they come up. It is always good to have customers come to your defense if possible, particularly in the social world.
While there’s no doubt that successful brand and customer experience management takes time and business resources, positive brand awareness and customer perceptions do more to ensure the reputation and success of a B2B company than any short-term initiative. The sooner B2B CMOs takes this to heart, the sooner the business will survive and thrive well into an optimistic future.
Posted by Jay Gaines on Fri, Mar 05, 2010 @ 09:49 AM
What B2B company doesn’t want a powerful brand that draws customers and makes the competition green with envy? After all, a compelling brand can influence buying decisions, justify higher prices, transcend cultural barriers, and create deep and lasting loyalty among customers. But in the quest to find and project the perfect brand, many b-to-b leaders risk aligning their businesses with misleading and even false brand promises that simply don’t reflect their customers’ experience or the core competencies of the organization.
Marketers have experienced increased demand to deliver a continuous stream of highly qualified leads to a sales force under tremendous pressure. The inevitable result has been an intense focus on short-term revenue supporting efforts while longer-term strategies have taken a back seat. This shift from long-term growth strategies to short-term revenue generation means that many B2B CMOs have turned their focus away from (among other things) customer experience management at critical touch points, including products/services, customer service and web sites. While short-term cash flow remains critical, leading B2B organizations understand that ignoring customer experience management could be a recipe for disaster.
This decline in attending to customer experience can lay the foundation for negative perceptions that will last long after the economy picks up and spending increases. As much as B2B marketing is about doing what is necessary to achieve near-term financial goals, an equally important responsibility is creating and maintaining a lasting, powerful (and positive) perception of the company. That’s exactly where brand comes into play. It’s through the lens of brand and its associated promise that buyers measure their experiences with the company; therefore, brands that don’t align with the typical customer experience are doing far more harm than good.
Also, due to the explosion of social media, B2B customers and buyers have very visible channels for expressing their opinions, as well as increased access to the opinions of others — and as we all know, this new customer empowerment has changed the B2B world forever. For example, a Google search for virtually any company won’t just reveal links to the company website and relevant information pages; customer reviews, raves and rants will often pop up within the first page of Google results. It is increasingly clear that customers who have been given a voice through social media now have as much influence over how a company is perceived as marketers at the company.
While astute B2B companies can play this magnified customer voice to their advantage by identifying and closing gaps between their brand promise and customer reality, businesses that don’t take action are putting themselves at serious risk. The new transparency that exists in the typical business/customer relationship means that businesses with customer experience management strategies that aren’t aligned with their brand message risk damaging their reputation, their relationships with customers and their future sales.