As a follow-up to my recent post about Salesforce.com being the foundation of your business, I was planning to write about marketing automation, or demand generation, tools since this is an area that is not completely addressed in Salesforce.com. I knew there were a LOT of vendors on AppExchange that offer marketing automation tools having recently selected Vtrenz, as a demand generation tool, but that's only part of the story.
Laura Ramos, Forrester Marketing Blog, recently wrote about the B2B Lead Management market outlining all of the options here. She defines 4 different technology buckets and 4 additional types of solution provider that are addressing this space. Within each area, she names a few companies but I'm sure there are many more.
So what is a person to do when they try to select a marketing automation or lead management tool? The options seem endless and none seem to do everything required for the B2B marketer.
When I looked for a demand generation tool, the objective was clear. I wanted to build on our CRM foundation with Salesforce.com and find a way to automatically execute demand generation campaigns and track results so that we could nurture and find more sales-ready leads. This would have placed me in the lead management bucket according to Ramos which means one area is address.
However, I still need to address web analytics, databases services and others, I'm sure. Since this whole market is relatively young and evolving quickly, it appears that I need to look at multiple vendors to address all of these needs. Here we go again...
So until there is consolidation in the B2B Lead Management market, we'll need to integrate multiple vendor solutions to do the entire job which reinforces the importance of picking a foundation which for me will be Salesforce.com.
April 13, 2008
April 8, 2008
The need for simple and consistent messaging
I think it was Mark Twain that said, "I would have written a shorter letter but I didn't have the time." He obviously understood that making something simple can be very difficult.
This fact alone probably explains why technology messaging tends to be very complicated and long so that nobody understands what you are trying to say except for those that work for the company (which is hardly the target audience). I guess in technology, companies don't want to spend the time (and resources) to make their messages simpler and easily understood by the target audience... but they must.
On top of that, they change the messaging frequently to try and make it better. Rarely do these changes result in a simpler message which would make sense. Instead they make the message inconsistent.
It's been said that you need to communicate the same thought 7 different times for someone to remember it. If you're changing your message around every few weeks or months then how will your prospects remember what you were trying to say if they hear something different every second time.
If you message is both complex and inconsistent (likely the case) then you are compounding the problem. For your demand generation campaign to be successful, it's crucial that you not only spend the time to simplify the message but also use it consistently for the duration of the campaign and across all media. This will without a doubt improve your response rate and increase the number of sales-ready leads.
This fact alone probably explains why technology messaging tends to be very complicated and long so that nobody understands what you are trying to say except for those that work for the company (which is hardly the target audience). I guess in technology, companies don't want to spend the time (and resources) to make their messages simpler and easily understood by the target audience... but they must.
On top of that, they change the messaging frequently to try and make it better. Rarely do these changes result in a simpler message which would make sense. Instead they make the message inconsistent.
It's been said that you need to communicate the same thought 7 different times for someone to remember it. If you're changing your message around every few weeks or months then how will your prospects remember what you were trying to say if they hear something different every second time.
If you message is both complex and inconsistent (likely the case) then you are compounding the problem. For your demand generation campaign to be successful, it's crucial that you not only spend the time to simplify the message but also use it consistently for the duration of the campaign and across all media. This will without a doubt improve your response rate and increase the number of sales-ready leads.
April 2, 2008
Salesforce.com - the foundation of your business?
My apologies for the lack of posts in March but it turned out to be an absolutely crazy month (it's tough when your day job gets in the way of your blog). This includes last week when I took a 4-day Salesforce.com administrator class. As you may have noticed from the current projects box on this blog, I was recently customizing Salesforce.com and looking at all its functionality. In the past, I really only used the platform for the lead and campaign features.
From this marketing perspective, Salesforce.com has some serious limitations that I know are shared by other demand generation professionals (feel free to share your frustrations below in the comments section). For many years, I've wanted to automate and better track marketing campaigns and then integrate this into the SFA package the company was using. In the end, we built many of our own tools and the integration was never close to what it needed to be.
When I started using Salesforce.com I could see the potential and when I selected a marketing automation tool earlier this year I could see the path to closed-loop lead generation was within reach and we can now nurture leads until they are sales-ready and track results all the way through to close.
All that is well and good and I would be a very happy customer of both Salesforce.com and Vtrenz. However, during this course I realized how much more powerful Salesforce.com actually is and with just the right amount of customization it can be adapted to a multitude of business processes. In fact, I can now see that you could run your entire business on this platform. And it only gets more powerful and flexible with each upgrade.
I don't want this post to sound like a commercial for Salesforce.com but I am now a total convert and will continue to explore all the new functionality and find more ways to automate not only marketing but the complete customer experience. I'll definitely post more on this topic as I discover more of what you can do. But since I'm still a marketing guy, I plan to explore ways to use it to track PR. Feel free to send me your suggestions and experiences with Salesforce.com.
From this marketing perspective, Salesforce.com has some serious limitations that I know are shared by other demand generation professionals (feel free to share your frustrations below in the comments section). For many years, I've wanted to automate and better track marketing campaigns and then integrate this into the SFA package the company was using. In the end, we built many of our own tools and the integration was never close to what it needed to be.
When I started using Salesforce.com I could see the potential and when I selected a marketing automation tool earlier this year I could see the path to closed-loop lead generation was within reach and we can now nurture leads until they are sales-ready and track results all the way through to close.
All that is well and good and I would be a very happy customer of both Salesforce.com and Vtrenz. However, during this course I realized how much more powerful Salesforce.com actually is and with just the right amount of customization it can be adapted to a multitude of business processes. In fact, I can now see that you could run your entire business on this platform. And it only gets more powerful and flexible with each upgrade.
I don't want this post to sound like a commercial for Salesforce.com but I am now a total convert and will continue to explore all the new functionality and find more ways to automate not only marketing but the complete customer experience. I'll definitely post more on this topic as I discover more of what you can do. But since I'm still a marketing guy, I plan to explore ways to use it to track PR. Feel free to send me your suggestions and experiences with Salesforce.com.
February 26, 2008
Targetting the right audience
It should come as no surprise that the more targetted your demand generation campaigns, the better the response and, more importantly, the better quality of the leads. At the same times, these targetted programs will improve the ratios between the stages of the sales funnel. I'm sure that all makes sense but you would be surprised how often a shotgun approach is taken to lead generation as many marketing organizations are measured purely on the number of leads generated.
To better target your demand generation campaigns, you must carefully identify the audience and then develop the right offer and communicate a compelling message (more on that in a subsequent post). Even better, would be to use multiple offers and different channels to reach this same target audience with an integrated campaign.
Identifying this target audience is not a trivial task, and the more specific you can be the better, but I would recommend you start by looking at the audiences you have been successful with selling to, looking for verticals where your product provides the most value, and talking to your sales force to find out the profile of their ideal prospect, similar to how you defined the A leads stage of the funnel. The more details you can collect here the better in order to build a prospect profile.
Then it's a matter of finding a way to target this prospect profile. The good news is that there are multiple media outlets that collect a lot of great information about their audience that allows you to be very specific. In some cases, TechTarget comes to mind, they not only have this information but have developed very specific media properties that you can leverage even further. I can't stress how important it is to find a media outlet that has the capabilities to be very specific and will work with you to target your audience.
In the end, any successful demand generation campaign can be even better by developing a specific audience profile and finding the right media to address it. While this isn't easy, it is possible and your demand generation program will reap the benefits of this approach.
To better target your demand generation campaigns, you must carefully identify the audience and then develop the right offer and communicate a compelling message (more on that in a subsequent post). Even better, would be to use multiple offers and different channels to reach this same target audience with an integrated campaign.
Identifying this target audience is not a trivial task, and the more specific you can be the better, but I would recommend you start by looking at the audiences you have been successful with selling to, looking for verticals where your product provides the most value, and talking to your sales force to find out the profile of their ideal prospect, similar to how you defined the A leads stage of the funnel. The more details you can collect here the better in order to build a prospect profile.
Then it's a matter of finding a way to target this prospect profile. The good news is that there are multiple media outlets that collect a lot of great information about their audience that allows you to be very specific. In some cases, TechTarget comes to mind, they not only have this information but have developed very specific media properties that you can leverage even further. I can't stress how important it is to find a media outlet that has the capabilities to be very specific and will work with you to target your audience.
In the end, any successful demand generation campaign can be even better by developing a specific audience profile and finding the right media to address it. While this isn't easy, it is possible and your demand generation program will reap the benefits of this approach.
February 22, 2008
Frequency and different tactics
I had an interesting conversation this week about whether it was more effective to use the same tactic multiple times or to use different tactics fewer times to increase response rates. For example, should you send 5 direct mail pieces to the same target list or should you send 1 direct mail, send an email, run a print ad, run a Google PPC ad and do an event targeted at the same audience?
It's well understood that targeting the same list multiple times does increase response rates. However, are you still limited if you rely on only one tactic or channel to reach your audience?
I believe that you definitely need to use multiple tactics for better lead generation. At the same time though, these tactics need to be implemented as part of an integrated campaign. You need to use the same messaging, imagery and call to action across these tactics so that you are in effect hitting the same audience multiple times.
Basically, I think the best way to increase response rates would do a combination of tactics but use some or all of them multiple times. If we look at the example used at the outset, instead of 1 direct mail being used 5 times or 5 different tactics being used once each, we should send 2 direct mails, 2 emails and run Google PPC ads for example. That way, we are hitting the same audience multiple times but also using different tactics and media for the widest possible effect.
Integrated marketing campaigns are very effective and I'll talk more about this in subsequent posts. To increase response and ROI though, these campaigns need to be integrated across tactics and media and run for multiple times so the same message and call to action hits the same audience.
It's well understood that targeting the same list multiple times does increase response rates. However, are you still limited if you rely on only one tactic or channel to reach your audience?
I believe that you definitely need to use multiple tactics for better lead generation. At the same time though, these tactics need to be implemented as part of an integrated campaign. You need to use the same messaging, imagery and call to action across these tactics so that you are in effect hitting the same audience multiple times.
Basically, I think the best way to increase response rates would do a combination of tactics but use some or all of them multiple times. If we look at the example used at the outset, instead of 1 direct mail being used 5 times or 5 different tactics being used once each, we should send 2 direct mails, 2 emails and run Google PPC ads for example. That way, we are hitting the same audience multiple times but also using different tactics and media for the widest possible effect.
Integrated marketing campaigns are very effective and I'll talk more about this in subsequent posts. To increase response and ROI though, these campaigns need to be integrated across tactics and media and run for multiple times so the same message and call to action hits the same audience.
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