Quick tip: When assembling a lead scoring standard for their lead nurture programs, many marketers assign a score based upon a scoring range, usually 0-100. This helps determine how qualified a lead actually is and where (generally) it is in the funnel. As long as both sales and marketing know what that range is and what it corresponds to, they figure the system works.
Try this - add a further (and simple, at-a-glance) understanding to your lead scores by assigning a letter/number score to the rate range. For example, 100-80 points would be further broken down as A1, A2, A3, A4 (A1 being highest). 79-60 could be B1, B2, B3 and so on. You could extend this scoring convention in any number of ways and any number range.
This assists your sales team further in equating a known grading system (A-excellent, B-very good, C-average, D-below average) to the value of the lead. Numbers standing alone don't always equate to a quick understanding of the lead quality and its' sales readiness.
In routing leads into SFA tools such as Salesforce.com, I've often given the lead an A1, A2, A3 lead score in the sales tool to gain the salesperson a better understanding of the lead value. Give it a shot...
Monday, November 30, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
High-Performance Landing Pages
As part of an overall lead nurturing strategy, there's been increasing talk about the use of what are commonly being referred to as high-performance landing pages (HPLPs). Marketing Profs will be presenting a webinar on HPLPs later this week. Companies like Ion Interactive offer software for HPLP development.
The idea behind HPLPs is simple -- better segmenting practices help you construct more targeted landing pages (LPs) with custom messaging and offers that more accurately speak to the interests and needs of targets in the decision chain. As marketeers continue to search for ways to boost conversions and make their content more relevant, I think the idea of customizing and super-charging your landing page optimization is well founded.
Some software apps (like the aforementioned Ion) can automate the process of building these pages -- helping to improve page layouts, dynamic page editing, adding/testing page elements such as Flash and flexible forms, bringing in logic/business rules to provide unique pathing based upon prior behaviors and advanced reporting capabilities.
Even if your budget won't permit the use of a landing page optimization software app, it's good practice to seek to manually create LPs that are specifically targeted to individual members of the decision chain (C-level, VP-level, Dir-level, Analyst-level) rather than one size fits all. Usually each of those targets has different responsibilities relative to the decision process, and thus would likely better respond to more relevant (and compelling) messaging and offers.
The idea behind HPLPs is simple -- better segmenting practices help you construct more targeted landing pages (LPs) with custom messaging and offers that more accurately speak to the interests and needs of targets in the decision chain. As marketeers continue to search for ways to boost conversions and make their content more relevant, I think the idea of customizing and super-charging your landing page optimization is well founded.
Some software apps (like the aforementioned Ion) can automate the process of building these pages -- helping to improve page layouts, dynamic page editing, adding/testing page elements such as Flash and flexible forms, bringing in logic/business rules to provide unique pathing based upon prior behaviors and advanced reporting capabilities.
Even if your budget won't permit the use of a landing page optimization software app, it's good practice to seek to manually create LPs that are specifically targeted to individual members of the decision chain (C-level, VP-level, Dir-level, Analyst-level) rather than one size fits all. Usually each of those targets has different responsibilities relative to the decision process, and thus would likely better respond to more relevant (and compelling) messaging and offers.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Lead Nurturing
I've been chatting this week with a former colleague setting up a simple lead scoring system for a small tech company where he runs the marketing team. He embraces the importance of automating his lead collection and management, nurturing the leads they gather as well as placing scores on each of the interactions he has with prospects as they progress through the lead funnel. Good stuff.
We've been debating though the amount of data he should seek to collect through this lead nurturing process, that is, how much data and when to ask for it. He's attempting to collect all relevant data with which to determine if the prospect is a viable lead IN THE FIRST CONTACT HE MAKES. Hmmm, I say... not good stuff.
We both agree that lead nurturing should be an ongoing process where we engage in a ongoing dialogue with a prospect with the goal of providing the prospect with high value information that makes him smarter/do his job better in exchange for his providing us proprietary data about what his needs are (or might be in the future). This suggests that this information exchange should be gradual and at a pace the prospect feels comfortable with in his learning process.
The lead nurture process is very much about your company gradually earning trust as a valued thought leader or provider of good ideas. As you become a trusted partner (you're not just about trying to sell product) the prospect will become more willing to gradually reveal more information about himself and his requirements. Very few people will tell you everything about who they are/what they need in that first marketing interaction.
I've always felt that the campaign forms I build are incremental and reflect where the prospect is in the funnel. I seek to gather just enough prospect data with the first marketing activity that permits me the chance to re-connect and prove my mettle again and again. My first forms usually ask just for a first, last name and an email address (always a 2nd email field to ensure there are no errors). Once I have that, I can enter the prospect into my marketing database and let the conversation grow.
Hopefully with each successive marketing transaction I provide sufficient value for the prospect to feel comfortable in exchanging more info about who he is and what his needs might be. A 2nd form might for instance ask for his title, company name, size, address and industry. 3rd touch forms might then delve into BANT information (budget, authority, need, timeline) where I begin to get a sense if there is funded project either now or on the horizon.
In future posts I'll go through how creating an offer portfolio which supports this lead nurturing process ensures a hand-off from one marketing transaction to the next and keeps the prospect engaged.
We've been debating though the amount of data he should seek to collect through this lead nurturing process, that is, how much data and when to ask for it. He's attempting to collect all relevant data with which to determine if the prospect is a viable lead IN THE FIRST CONTACT HE MAKES. Hmmm, I say... not good stuff.
We both agree that lead nurturing should be an ongoing process where we engage in a ongoing dialogue with a prospect with the goal of providing the prospect with high value information that makes him smarter/do his job better in exchange for his providing us proprietary data about what his needs are (or might be in the future). This suggests that this information exchange should be gradual and at a pace the prospect feels comfortable with in his learning process.
The lead nurture process is very much about your company gradually earning trust as a valued thought leader or provider of good ideas. As you become a trusted partner (you're not just about trying to sell product) the prospect will become more willing to gradually reveal more information about himself and his requirements. Very few people will tell you everything about who they are/what they need in that first marketing interaction.
I've always felt that the campaign forms I build are incremental and reflect where the prospect is in the funnel. I seek to gather just enough prospect data with the first marketing activity that permits me the chance to re-connect and prove my mettle again and again. My first forms usually ask just for a first, last name and an email address (always a 2nd email field to ensure there are no errors). Once I have that, I can enter the prospect into my marketing database and let the conversation grow.
Hopefully with each successive marketing transaction I provide sufficient value for the prospect to feel comfortable in exchanging more info about who he is and what his needs might be. A 2nd form might for instance ask for his title, company name, size, address and industry. 3rd touch forms might then delve into BANT information (budget, authority, need, timeline) where I begin to get a sense if there is funded project either now or on the horizon.
In future posts I'll go through how creating an offer portfolio which supports this lead nurturing process ensures a hand-off from one marketing transaction to the next and keeps the prospect engaged.
Friday, October 30, 2009
More SEO Tips
I've recently been helping out a friend with his new small business selling golf training aids (check out his site: http://www.athleticgolfswing.com/ the Pure Contact Connection is a winner!) and have been reminded about some areas of basic SEO that need some close attention, no matter the size of your business (I've even noticed this with global enterprise companies that have been on my radar).
I've previously mentioned the three initial areas that any website should address with regards to SEO - meta tags for title, description and keywords. Although having quality in-bound links to your site are probably at the top of the list with respect to getting crawled and ranked organically, your title meta is important and does factor into how Google and others index and rank you. Remember that the title should contain the most important searchable keywords or #1 most common search phrase that people would use to find your type of solution. Remember not to exceed more than 60 characters total in the title as most search engines may only display that number of characters in their search results.
Your meta description tag should provide a full, coherent, keyword-laden description of what your company or product does -- it's value proposition if you will. As well it should not exceed 150 characters in total to ensure it's fully displayed in any search results (this includes characters and any spaces).
These two things most people are on top of... where I see some issues is in keywords and their importance to your SEO. Due to SEO analysts finding ways to stuff keywords into web pages and trying to game the system, search engines like Google have attached minimal importance to them in indexing and ranking your site.
However that is not to say they don't play a role. Where keywords help you is ensuring that they are reflected in your title and description metas, BUT ALSO IN YOUR WEB COPY. Google looks for relevance in web pages, where keyword terms and phrases are populated throughout the site content/copy. And weave the terms into your copy in a coherent, organized way, creating a strong and compelling narrative.
Also -- since (hopefully) most of your website pages are each a little different and describe different aspects of your company or products, so too should your meta tags reflect those differences. Try not to repeat the same metas on every page, it won't help your rankings and in fact could probably hurt your indexing. Any keyword exercise you do should be for each and every primary page that you have on your site. Obviously there will be overlap in terms from page to page, but try to create the most pertinent terms for the page content you have, then reflect those terms in title, description and keyword metas, AS WELL AS your page copy.
You should see improved rankings result from these simple steps.
I've previously mentioned the three initial areas that any website should address with regards to SEO - meta tags for title, description and keywords. Although having quality in-bound links to your site are probably at the top of the list with respect to getting crawled and ranked organically, your title meta is important and does factor into how Google and others index and rank you. Remember that the title should contain the most important searchable keywords or #1 most common search phrase that people would use to find your type of solution. Remember not to exceed more than 60 characters total in the title as most search engines may only display that number of characters in their search results.
Your meta description tag should provide a full, coherent, keyword-laden description of what your company or product does -- it's value proposition if you will. As well it should not exceed 150 characters in total to ensure it's fully displayed in any search results (this includes characters and any spaces).
These two things most people are on top of... where I see some issues is in keywords and their importance to your SEO. Due to SEO analysts finding ways to stuff keywords into web pages and trying to game the system, search engines like Google have attached minimal importance to them in indexing and ranking your site.
However that is not to say they don't play a role. Where keywords help you is ensuring that they are reflected in your title and description metas, BUT ALSO IN YOUR WEB COPY. Google looks for relevance in web pages, where keyword terms and phrases are populated throughout the site content/copy. And weave the terms into your copy in a coherent, organized way, creating a strong and compelling narrative.
Also -- since (hopefully) most of your website pages are each a little different and describe different aspects of your company or products, so too should your meta tags reflect those differences. Try not to repeat the same metas on every page, it won't help your rankings and in fact could probably hurt your indexing. Any keyword exercise you do should be for each and every primary page that you have on your site. Obviously there will be overlap in terms from page to page, but try to create the most pertinent terms for the page content you have, then reflect those terms in title, description and keyword metas, AS WELL AS your page copy.
You should see improved rankings result from these simple steps.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Focusing on the Right Affiliates
I recently concluded a client engagement that included a number of demand generation initiatives, both through direct and in-direct channels. Affiliate partners played an important role in helping to drive demand for the client's consumer software suite.
In a post-mortem of the activities, two things jumped out at me -- it was clear that of the scores of affiliates that were signed up as partners, the majority of lead flow (and revenue) came from a small percentage (~10%) of those partners in the program.
Second, many partners had preferences (and differing results) for certain products.
This illustrates some key points with respect to affiliate marketing and how to best manage your marketing investments around where the success comes from. It will be true that for many partners, the investment provided to them in the way of resources (time, programs, messaging, tools, support, training, etc.) will be inordinate compared to the results you derive from that relationship. Good reporting and analytics should help you to identify and isolate those partners that can and do perform. Once known, that data should help guide where your organization should place greater emphasis in helping affiliates to maximize their (and your) marketing outcomes.
As well, your analytics and reporting should also help determine those partners who drive demand for certain solutions only, those partners who are fully engaged but for some reasons are unable to meet/surpass certain quotas or requirements and those partners who do not provide a corresponding return for the investment you're making in them.
The capability to isolate and understand your partners is therefore crucial to maximizing affiliate performance. Some will require (and have earned) more incremental time and resource allocation based upon performance (or potential). Some will not. The trick is to have the data and analysis available to you to make those types of calls. It's also important to note that it's natural to expect churn within your partner portfolio as a result of systematic review and appraisal of your partners. Which also supports the importance of an ongoing and aggressive affiliate acquisition program.
In a post-mortem of the activities, two things jumped out at me -- it was clear that of the scores of affiliates that were signed up as partners, the majority of lead flow (and revenue) came from a small percentage (~10%) of those partners in the program.
Second, many partners had preferences (and differing results) for certain products.
This illustrates some key points with respect to affiliate marketing and how to best manage your marketing investments around where the success comes from. It will be true that for many partners, the investment provided to them in the way of resources (time, programs, messaging, tools, support, training, etc.) will be inordinate compared to the results you derive from that relationship. Good reporting and analytics should help you to identify and isolate those partners that can and do perform. Once known, that data should help guide where your organization should place greater emphasis in helping affiliates to maximize their (and your) marketing outcomes.
As well, your analytics and reporting should also help determine those partners who drive demand for certain solutions only, those partners who are fully engaged but for some reasons are unable to meet/surpass certain quotas or requirements and those partners who do not provide a corresponding return for the investment you're making in them.
The capability to isolate and understand your partners is therefore crucial to maximizing affiliate performance. Some will require (and have earned) more incremental time and resource allocation based upon performance (or potential). Some will not. The trick is to have the data and analysis available to you to make those types of calls. It's also important to note that it's natural to expect churn within your partner portfolio as a result of systematic review and appraisal of your partners. Which also supports the importance of an ongoing and aggressive affiliate acquisition program.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Do Clicks = Trials = Sales?
As I've been working recently building some online media tests for a consumer software client, it's been amplified to me the importance of tracking your campaigns accurately to determine to what extent they impact revenue.
I've mentioned in the past that online display media would not be my first choice (or 2nd, or 3rd :^) to drive data collection and lead capture in a campaign. That being said, I do feel there are other relevant online advertising vehicles that could work under the right conditions (paid search, highly targeted affiliate search, pay-per-download, etc).
If your product is a software solution which can be easily downloaded as a trial, pay-per-download might provide an interesting testing ground. We've actually had some success in a pay-per-download program with a global media download site, where in fact we've seen over 5500 downloads of our software product trial over about a 3 week period. At least that's what the media partner claims.
The issue for us is what exactly constitutes a 'certified download' with the partner? This week I analyzed the site's claimed download numbers with our analytics reporting and saw that the download to trial ratio was much lower that our standard trial ratios.
In examining the steps on the site to download the trial, it's clear that the first step -- click on the download link -- might indeed be their claimed number of >5500 clicks. But that doesn't mean that all of those clicks resulted in the file being actually SAVED to the client machine (2nd step from the download link), then RUN on the client machine.
When I mentioned this to the media rep, she agreed that altho the trial does get downloaded from their server (thus they should have the info on the number of times the file was actually served/saved), they don't have those figures. It's a critical pathing that's missing from our ROI calculation.
On our side we're able to see how many run the trial as it actually scans the host machine (it's a driver update software) and then provides a results page which is issued by our servers.
Right now it's very tough for me to figure out the ROI of the pay-per-download campaign. As well, there is insufficient reporting to see where we could optimize within the download process to improve saves and runs of the trial.
We're not ready to write off this type pf marketing investment, but it's certainly tough to build a business case for it. I mention this to remind you of the importance of not only doing sufficient internal tracking but also the tracking you receive from the online partners you may be considering. To get an accurate picture, you need to capture EVERY click, every online action, every online step from the initial message thru to trial and sales conversion.
I've mentioned in the past that online display media would not be my first choice (or 2nd, or 3rd :^) to drive data collection and lead capture in a campaign. That being said, I do feel there are other relevant online advertising vehicles that could work under the right conditions (paid search, highly targeted affiliate search, pay-per-download, etc).
If your product is a software solution which can be easily downloaded as a trial, pay-per-download might provide an interesting testing ground. We've actually had some success in a pay-per-download program with a global media download site, where in fact we've seen over 5500 downloads of our software product trial over about a 3 week period. At least that's what the media partner claims.
The issue for us is what exactly constitutes a 'certified download' with the partner? This week I analyzed the site's claimed download numbers with our analytics reporting and saw that the download to trial ratio was much lower that our standard trial ratios.
In examining the steps on the site to download the trial, it's clear that the first step -- click on the download link -- might indeed be their claimed number of >5500 clicks. But that doesn't mean that all of those clicks resulted in the file being actually SAVED to the client machine (2nd step from the download link), then RUN on the client machine.
When I mentioned this to the media rep, she agreed that altho the trial does get downloaded from their server (thus they should have the info on the number of times the file was actually served/saved), they don't have those figures. It's a critical pathing that's missing from our ROI calculation.
On our side we're able to see how many run the trial as it actually scans the host machine (it's a driver update software) and then provides a results page which is issued by our servers.
Right now it's very tough for me to figure out the ROI of the pay-per-download campaign. As well, there is insufficient reporting to see where we could optimize within the download process to improve saves and runs of the trial.
We're not ready to write off this type pf marketing investment, but it's certainly tough to build a business case for it. I mention this to remind you of the importance of not only doing sufficient internal tracking but also the tracking you receive from the online partners you may be considering. To get an accurate picture, you need to capture EVERY click, every online action, every online step from the initial message thru to trial and sales conversion.
Friday, October 2, 2009
PPC Quality Score & Relevance
Good article today on ClickZ Relevant Signals on PPC Search discussing some of the signals search engines use to determine the relevance of your paid search ads for specific search queries. All have their own versions of Quality Score assigned to ad-keyword combinations that help determine how relevant your ads are (and how well they rank).
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