marketing automation etc.

Prevent a Marketing Automation Shipwreck

Fifteen years and 40 client projects later, we have seen some Marketing Automation (MA) and sales CRM implementations deliver significant revenue improvement for some clients, while others have struggled to achieve break-even.  Some clients have become top performers, while others are challenged to adapt.  What made the difference?

The answers can be sorted out three ways:  expectation, preparation, and perspiration.  Here we focus on the first issue:  Expectation.

shipwreck

The Challenge of Change

Marketers usually enter a Marketing Automation (MA) implementation expecting to improve multi-channel communications, streamline email marketing, analyze response, centralize data, prioritize leads and meaningfully engage buyers throughout the buy cycle.

All this is possible, and more – assuming you expect deeper changes to business processes, which is where the greatest improvement opportunity exists.  Hint: If you don’t have processes in place, but expect your new Marketing Automation solution to solve that, it’s not a good fit.  Technology probably won’t help, simply because you cannot automate a vacuum.  In that case, you might instead consider a “readiness” project involving an audit of current information flows and workflows, along with recommendations for adapting to keep pace with customer needs and competitors. We can help there.  Try taking this self-assessment, for starters.

Perils of Not Changing

If you have rather well instituted processes but you don’t plan to examine process change opportunities during your MA implementation, preferring instead to have your new system mirror existing practice exactly “as is”, perhaps expecting that this path-of-least-resistance approach will ease implementation or make it more palatable to users, you may expect to take longer to see a return on your investment – and you may even have difficulty measuring it.  For example: using MA to do “batch and blast” email doesn’t leverage the technology, and you will likely miss out on the benefits of data analytics and audience segmentation available with most MA solutions and which could improve your audience response rates, shorten sales cycle time, and accelerate ROI.  Our top performing clients generally see this new “software layer” as a source of innovation and continuous, positive change.

deckhands

Downstream Effects

Marketers need to have reasonable expectations regarding the nature of workflow and how it could likely change.  Marketing Automation doesn’t always reduce the burden, and could actually increase it.  For example, the new software can be difficult to learn.  It often demands new content, or at least changes to existing content. It makes good/bad results more visible.  It often requires new skills, new ways of thinking and, consequently, changes to workflow. It requires flexibility and adaptability to make refinements as new discoveries occur.  It is, in other words, disruptive in many positive ways – but only if you the resilience to maintain a positive focus and the mindset to adapt.  This points to a need to communicate early and often to your organization and audiences about your marketing automation implementation, to avoid surprises and disruptions downstream. In short, it’s relatively easy to change systems, but not so easy to change people.

Three big wins

Some of the greatest improvement opportunities in MA and, not too coincidentally, the three areas where the learning curve is most intense, are the areas of lead management, response triggers and workflow.   All three involve close collaboration among many internal stakeholders, starting with marketing and sales, but often expanding to the service and product teams, and to your executive team who consume the reports based on the complex information flows within your MA technology.  Expect, therefore, that your internal processes will be laid bare and examined closely by multiple stakeholders.  You all stand to gain from this new openness.  This is another great reason to widely communicate about your MA implementation plans, with an eye to extending its benefits to all your stakeholders.

You should expect to assume the role of chief communicator on behalf of all parties, which means more work for you, but the results can be well worth it.

Customers Weigh In

Customers and buyers, meanwhile, have new, more sophisticated expectations.  Just a scant decade ago, Sales and Marketing were the main information gateway for buyers.  Today, by contrast, a buyer can be substantially finished researching a purchase before you even become aware of their interest.  What are you doing to help nurture those potential buyers and help them buy?  How effective are you at competitively positioning your products and pricing?  Marketing automation solutions cannot fix a problem concerning product, price, competitive position, or flat-out bad marketing.  Be honest with yourself about other shortcomings, and consider fixing them first.

Seek Counsel

Finally, it would be prudent to discuss your plans with someone experienced in marketing and sales technologies including SFA, CRM, marketing automation, email marketing, and mapping  their related business process flows.  You could gain perspective on the challenges and opportunities a marketing automation solution can offer.

How does your experience compare?  Is your marketing automation delivering its expected results?   We  welcome your comments, ideas, tips stories.

If you have questions, feel free to contact us.

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adaptive marketing, marketing automation etc., sales 2.0, User Experience, web analytics

Data. Knowledge. Power. Yours? Mine? Ours!

online surpriseThanks to a rich online experience, buyers indeed have greater purchase influence these days, but where does the true power reside?  It’s shared, really.

Marketers have made much of this “empowered customer” phenomenon.  Online, you can research and get close to a buying decision – right down to vendor, product, price and feature selection – before the seller even becomes aware of your existence.

Salesreps, just a scant decade ago, guided purchases with probing inquiries about interest, budget and other decision factors.  About 2/3 of buying and selling decisions today are salesrep-facilitated, but a full 1/3 of buying and selling is of the buyer-driven, “salesrep-lite” variety.  We can expect to see considerable rebalancing from time to time, thanks to (a) recent advances in mobile digital profiling ; (b) a coming wave of marketing technology mergers, acquisitions and partnerships, and (c) a currently proposed standard for profile data interchange currently before the Worldwide Web Consortium – the W3C.

Profiling – It Really Is All About You

dog sufing webToday on the internet, so the updated joke goes, if you’re a dog everyone knows it – as well as your breed, age, gender and preferred kibble brand. Today, your online behavior – actions such as clicking “Like” buttons on Facebook pages you visit, for instance – helps marketers (interpretive algorithms, really) make inferences about your identity including gender, age, political and social tendencies, then use that info to tailor your online experience so you see ads and content that cater to your digitally harvested “buyer persona”.  That preferences profile of you is continually enriched and refreshed based on your online and mobile behavior patterns.

Stated differently, “free” isn’t really “free”. It never really was. When you surf the web, you reveal (“lend”) bits of your identity to savvy marketers who trace your online behavior patterns to compile that rich profile of you that can be then used to tailor your online experience in such a way that your satisfaction from the online experience is improved and, of course, increases the likelihood you will buy from them.

Emerging Standards

Recently, a consortium of retail and insurance companies including Adobe, Google and BestBuy have proposed to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) a set of standards for commerce data interchange that would make it easier for us all to do business online.   Merchants, health care providers, finance firms, and consumers all stand to gain from this.

Who Goes There?

mobile surpriseAs long as you consent and your privacy is protected, all is well.  Increasingly we have come to trust certain online identity repositories curated by the likes of Google Wallet,  Amazon, LinkedIn, Twitter etc.  In the broader commerce world, however, small and midsized organizations have not built, bought or hired the depth of technical ability to make sense of all that data, let alone apply it to their business or curate it responsibly.  The above-mentioned W3C Web data acquisition standard could really democratize things.

Leveling the commerce field

Larger organizations may seem more capable, but that isn’t always the case; they typically are running legacy apps (archaic programming and hardware) whose code is tough to maintain, let alone modify to take advantage of the proposed newer standards.  Fortunately, companies like AppDirect, Apigee and Nexaweb Technologies –  experts at modernizing all those legacy apps for large financial, trading, shipping and consumer facing companies – are hard at work on the challenge.  (Disclosure: I own a smidgin of stock in Nexaweb).

We buyers can tell who is “with it” and who isn’t, based on whether the ads that get served to us, or our repeat visits to favorite sites,  are tailored based on our browsing behavior or our location.  For example, I recently visited a jewelry website, after which my visits to other websites, including Google Search, became peppered with jewelry, wedding and dating ads.  With the recent accelerating consolidation among solution providers in the marketing automation, sales CRM, email marketing and web analytics space, those web commerce architecture elements are becoming knit more tightly.  Expect the next few years to bring an expansion of already existing analytics, buyer profiling and content tailoring solutions, more broadly affordable to midmarket and smaller enterprises with whom you regularly do business.

Do the benefits outweigh the risks?

If you consider the ability to track user behavior narrowly through the buyer / seller lens, Consider the implications.  Will buyers’ online preference profiles tailor each netizen’s digital experience so greatly that the reinforcing effect of a profile-driven, tailored on-the-fly web experience merely helps bring relevant online information conveniently into sharper focus, to your benefit?  Or, could the online experience become so digitally mutated by profile-driven content tailoring that its “echo chamber” effect distorts your online experience in ways that prevent you from viewing alternative information to consider broader options and render well-informed decisions?  Will the rich have a different web experience than the not-so-rich, based on their profiles, harvested data, and access to speed?  In other words, how much is too much?

If you broaden your focus beyond commerce and consider the ability to track population behavior to detect and help resolve anything from traffic congestion (like, say, Waze) to disease spread, then the benefits become more clear.

Shut it down if you want to

Do you know how to “shut down” your behavioral profile and surf the Web anonymously to obtain a more random, unfiltered experience? It’s possible, you know, without a lot of geekery. Tools abound, such as Google’s InPrivate Browsing feature and other tools that let you assume a random IP address (Google that boldface phrase to see some options) when surfing.  Your mobile experience can also be made private if you know how to turn off geo-location, but you’re still registered on a network when your phone is on.

This delicate balance of individual privacy, public disclosure, information gathering and sharing between big firms, security agencies and other firms is now being played out in the world headlines.  The NSA and other entities regularly approach Google, Facebook and Microsoft, as well as telecommunications companies, to obtain customer activity  information for the purposes of national security and law enforcement.

Our Best Behavior

If we marketers hew to the goal of providing a more useful, satisfying experience to you while keeping your privacy sacrosanct, that’s all to the good.  As tools become more broadly available and powerful to enable deep customer profiling and tailored online experience, you may come to expect a more gratifying relationship with your favorite brands.  After all, consumers already have heightened expectations.  They don’t want every interaction with the same business to feel like the first date.

How do you feel about the coming boom in digital profiling and data exchange?  Comments welcome here.

Other Resources

Death of the Active Check-in (David Peterson, CEO, Sense Networks blog)
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Opinion, social media, Uncategorized

LinkedIn Invitations and Stranger Danger

Prevent Online TrollsShould you accept a LinkedIn request from a stranger?  Some legitimate, real people (but also a few spammers, trolls and competitors) send LinkedIn invitations to complete strangers.  I extend the term “stranger” to include belonging to the same LinkedIn Discussion Group but not having had any substantive dialogue or value exchange.  Should you link to them? Okay for some, but not for me. Here I discuss the reason, as well as some best-practice advice from experts (see Resources links at end of this article).

The “Start-up of You” Philosophy

My LinkedIn policy tends to follow LinkedIn’s Founders’ “Startup of You” philosophy of linking to:

  1. Allies – Domain experts whom I know well, and who add perspective.  This means we’ve met, collaborated and significantly influenced one another’s lives. You usually a current or past customer, partner, supplier, or coworker.
  2. Acquaintances – non-allies with whom I have actively exchanged value in the form of work, knowledge or perspective.  Merely belonging to the same LinkedIn group without jointly participating in that group’s dialogue does not qualify.
  3. Colleagues, Collaborators, Clients – anyone with whom I’ve had substantial business experience from which I can discern their ethical behavior.

Okay, Stranger, I’m off my horse now and indeed looking forward to starting or joining a dialogue as a part of getting to know you, especially if we share a LinkedIn Group or two, where the chances are thus quite good. But don’t get me started back on the subject of Trolls.  We both know they exist.  Heck, if you are sending me – a total stranger – a LinkedIn invitation, aren’t you risking it a bit?  I could be that Troll.  Of course I’m not; I’m just saying.

The Accidental Invitation?

Some mobile and desktop users accidentally misfire and select the “Invite” button.  Unless they know how to retract it, you may end up with an occasional invitation from a stranger.  To that I say: forgive, forget, and ignore.  If, on the other hand, you are that stranger and you seriously intended to connect with that other person, the easiest way to distinguish yourself from a troll or a nuisance would be for you to customize the greeting message, outlining your thoughts on the value of connecting. Try it!

Troll-spotting

Scam Puzzle
Typical scam puzzle

It’s actually pretty easy to spot a Troll even though the more sophisticated ones create entire fake Company profiles on LinkedIn, complete with fake recommendations and group memberships.  Dig a little deeper, though, and you may see telltale “cardboard cutout” signs: no active Group participation, no traceable business listing.  Oh, yes, and some of these fake profiles are sending LinkedIn invitations to strangers like you.  Why would a Troll go to all the bother?  To leverage the trust between you and your network, gain access to your contacts, access and extract your network’s profile data, spam them and, in the process, quite possibly mar your reputation – deservedly so, if you’re that careless.

Other likely indications of Trolls include:

Profile Pic – absent, poor quality, over-posed, provocative
Contact info – none, incomplete, or dodgy
Proofreading – grammar or spelling errors, awkward prose
History – scant or missing info, history breaks, scant detail
Connnections – suspicious, none in common, or unfamiliar mutual ones
Messaging – none, generic or, if custom, CTA with suspicious link
Activity – engagement is scant, low value, or suspicious

Link (and think) like the Pros:  legitimate references

Let’s look at how LinkedIn is used today in the corporate world.  Recruiters, for example, when searching for talent, increasingly use LinkedIn to find candidates.  Researchers and sales pros with legitimate needs use LinkedIn to search among their contacts and extended networks to find knowledgeable references.  If you appear in one of those search results, and the recruiter / researcher notices you are LinkedIn to a colleague at their company, or a relevant influential person:  Bingo!  Instant inferred trust and credibility, as if your reference check is already done and your credibility is established….unless you’re not really acquainted and just pecked the “Accept” button simply to amass more pointless, relatively anonymous Connections.

If you are linked in to a bunch of strangers who either don’t know you or can’t remember you, imagine what that recruiter or researcher must think about the veracity of the rest of your LinkedIn profile – or your ability to discern, cultivate allies, and align resources.  Do you want to be seen as trustworthy, honest and accurate in your communications?  Well, then, don’t damage your credibility by linking to people you don’t know and, incidentally, dilute that critical Social Currency known as Trust by co-mingling untrustworthy strangers into your network of trusted associates.

We CAN-SPAM compliant marketers know better.  Relationships, trust and respect are hard-won and sacrosanct.  You get what you give.  Of course, if you don’t discriminate on LinkedIn between strangers and trusted relationships, then by all means, link away.  Just don’t expect me to reciprocate until after we have established a mutual, credible dialogue. Until then, keep smiling.

How to meaningfully connect

If you are legitimately able to find a meaningful mutual opportunity to connect, exchange ideas, and enhance one another’s resources, then say so.  Ask that question in a brief message with your Connection Request.

Your message might include: how you might already know one another (conversation, meeting); what knowledge or domain expertise you have in common; and a compelling reason to connect in order to extend the dialogue, such as a targeted question, an offer to assist, or other compelling reason to follow up.

Note: your spammy sales pitch obviously does not fit here. Nether is your lame statement that you have Connections or Groupa in common.  Think: Is there an opportunity for a mutually beneficial conversation that doesn’t involve a sale?

Over to you

What are your criteria for sending and accepting LinkedIn connection requests? Do they enhance or dilute the value of your LinkedIn network?   Love to hear your stories.

Cheers,

Ed

@fanfoundry

Related articles

Additional Resources

The Startup of You (book title and website by Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn

Opinion, social media

Dear Graduate: Social Media is Part of Your Job

Social...how?In a recent visit with a class of college seniors, I was asked rather pointedly: are there any jobs in Social Media?  Pondering this question, I had to answer it from two perspectives: the marketing agency, and the business organization.

First, the Agency Perspective

This is the far easier perspective.  There are indeed roles that focus largely on social media.  Marketing Agency clients who are either resource-strained or lack native expertise often outsource some aspects of social media communications to agencies whose mastery of branding, marketing communications, audience analytics, CRM, user experience design and social listening across various social channels and technical platforms can help the client achieve their audience goals.

Now, the Corporate Perspective

This one is by far more nuanced, but the answer is still a qualified yes.  While there may not be corporate social media “jobs” per se, social media can help you perform just about any role better – whether or not your role is marketing intern.  Consider the following aspects of work life and the importance of social media savvy for each aspect – no matter what profession or set of duties you are considering.

The Producer’s Role (your “product”)

Just about every job requires you to produce a  measurable output.  That could be a product, a result, a process step, a calculation, a recommendation, a report, etc.  As a producer, you need to master certain skills such as content development to effectively communicate your process and results.  It is useful to develop a “voice” within your team, company, and industry.  Having an authentic, trusted, competent voice builds support for your ideas and for communicating results.

Social media channels can help you build and amplify your voice  when you publish your ideas.  A blog, wiki or website, a SlideShare-hosted PowerPoint presentation, a .pdf, or perhaps even a short video illustrating your message – all are useful avenues for publishing your (non-proprietary) works. Learning how to produce your content, including compelling visuals, is a good start.  Knowing how to tag your content so it is searchable and visible online is now a baseline skill. Having grown up online, dear graduate, you probably know the importance of tagging and you consider it a natural part of projecting your content and your voice.

The Analyst’s Role  (your “antenna”) 

Often your job requires you to analyze information, interpret it in light of your organization’s needs and priorities, and present your interpretation in a way that is sensitive to your audience’s culture and your  impact on their behavior.  Learning to monitor social media channels within your industry, profession and business community can help you develop your “antenna” – a sensitivity to audience needs, requirements and trends – that can then help you better communicate your analyses and interpretations, raise awareness, enlist support, stimulate action and lead change.

Time spent on social media channels can also help you make sense of information, intelligently filter it,  separate signal from noise and draw better-informed conclusions about the relative value of other voices and sources you encounter online.

The Designer’s Role (your “voice”) 

Designers need to balance multiple roles, such as upward accountability for results as well as lateral, cross-organizational collaboration.  Use of social media technologies helps you perform these functions better.  Even simple schedule, project, chat, survey and other collaboration tools help you improve the quality and timeliness of your contribution to results.  Enterprise software tools may often include intra-organizational social features, such as chat and wiki.

Crowdsourcing your ideas invites a broad array of new ideas and inputs, and helps validate a concrete course of action.  Since it is widely accepted that at any given point in time the smartest people on any subject probably do not work with you or for you, consider crowdsourcing!  Invite others’ input, learn to mediate and moderate among various idea directions, and you can achieve far better results, and possibly even avoid costly mistakes.

The Dispatcher’s Role (your “audience”) 

Sending information is a standard function in most jobs.  Social media tools give you practice at building an audience, understanding communications and cultural dynamics, and packaging your communications in ways that build a receptive audience clarify understanding.

The Leader’s Role (your “compass”) 

The effective leader shepherds activity toward productive outcomes.  Building omni-directional communication skills within channels, and cultivating a multi-channel audience, helps the organization leader communicate more effectively, support collaboration and achieve communication goals.

Over to You

So, dear Graduate, think not just about a social media job; think about how social media helps you do just about any job better.  Can you think of a way it has worked, or could work, for you?   What tools are you finding effective?  I deliberately didn’t name many here.  Love to hear your comments!

Uncategorized

Boston Marathon 2013: Charity Outpaces Terror

I am among the fortunate millions who have run in, and experienced, the Boston Marathon many times before this year’s mayhem. I am sure I speak for many of those millions when I say I the Marathon represents many positive things – humanity, charity, euphoria, competition, vitality, camaraderie.  Those qualities were no less present on April 15, 2013.

Marathon Memorial
Months later: public solidarity at the Marathon finish line. Click to enlarge.

If you are troubled or injured by the Boston Marathon bombing, your suffering is very real, and you have my utmost sympathy and support.  I only hope my words can somehow help to ease your suffering, neighbor.

We heard it many times this day: “The Good outnumber the Bad, and we always will”.  In the heroism of the willing spectators who joined with medical and law enforcement officials on April 15, we proved it again and the world noticed. 

Let not the acts of a few disturbed individuals lead us into believing the world is so proportionately evil or dangerous.  It is good to be prudent but not overly intimidated by the irrational few.

Thanks for all the well-wishes pouring in worldwide.  In the marathon of life, we run side by side.