Marketing Interactions

Lead Scoring Conundrum

There's lots of talk about lead scoring lately. Most of it is based on assigning points for particular lead activities and using the accumulated scores to assign the lead's status in the sales process. I just saw an example that included assigning points for different activities, including links clicked within an email communications, white paper downloads and other web pages visited.

Which made me wonder what that really tells the marketer about the lead? Let's toss out an example where a company has defined that at 25 points a lead is sales ready and should be handed off to a salesperson:

Lead scoring summary:

Email links clicked (2 links clicked X 3 pts) = 6 pts
Downloads white paper (one X 5 pts) = 5 pts
Visits other web pages (10 pages X 1 pt) = 10 pts
Registers for a webinar (1 reg X 7 pts) = 7 pts

Lead score total = 28 pts

Okay, this is simplistic, but there's plenty to look at in this one example. Let's consider context.

• Did the email links take the lead to the page where he downloaded the white paper?


• Was the subject matter at the end of the email links closely related to the topic addressed by the white paper?


• What about the other web pages? How do they relate to the topic that initiated the visit? Is your lead looking at a variety of things, or are they zoned in on one thing? What navigational path did they take to view those web pages? Is there a pattern that shows acceleration of interest?


• They may have registered for your webinar, but did they attend it? Is the topic matter related to the other resources they're viewing?

You see, I think it has to go beyond activity to relevance and urgency. Just assigning points based on behavior without applied context doesn't tell you a whole lot, except that something you've said has grabbed temporary attention.

According to this simplistic view, the lead is sales ready. But, what do you really know about them and their interests? What if your company sells 5 different products and they've looked at all 5 product-specific web pages? What if they viewed a variety of case studies about companies that aren't like theirs?

It seems to me that the activity scoring needs to be related to the context of each touchpoint in order to provide quality definition and intelligence you can work with. Nurturing is about more than shoving leads through the funnel and dumping them into the CRM for your salespeople to pursue.

For marketing to gain the respect of sales, leads need to transition complete with intelligence sales can act upon with confidence. Otherwise they're going to treat your leads the way they've always treated them - without a lot of respect.

Take a look at your sales team's ratio of converting the leads marketing gives them into valid opportunities. Is it impressive? If not, perhaps context is what's missing in your lead scoring assumptions.

Continuity Impacts Status Quo

I was watching the movie Deep Impact the other day and the reporter (Tea Leoni)who had been chosen to be saved asked her mom (Vanessa Redgrave) why? Her mother said that people need continuity to embrace change.

Which I thought was really interesting. I mean think about it for a minute. As marketers, one of the biggest challenges we have is creating a shift in status quo that allows us to generate enough interest and engagement with our products that sales can sell them. But, complex sales carry a bigger threat of risk and have much longer consideration, proof and commitment cycles than simpler decisions.

Would it help us shift the status quo if we could simplify the complexity? Yes, of course. And many of us have embraced the iterative project that gets our foot in the door and gives our company time to build a relationship to gain a bigger share of future projects the customer is planning.

But, simplicity and continuity are two different things. Continuity is constancy and stability. Simplicity is breaking things down into digestible bits and ensuring there's clarity around them. Simplicity is about making things easy, but they may still be new things, which is risky.

What I'm proposing is that continuity is the reduction of the perception of risk through emphasizing the things that will remain stable during the project. The idea that by lessening the concept of disruption, your customer may be more inclined to engage with your offering.

Continuity means giving your customer something safe to hold onto as they embrace the idea of the change your offering will bring—all at the same time. I know when we talk about simplicity we think our prospects and customers get that part, but do they really?

Change is a good thing, even though our tendency is to fight it. Companies can't grow without it. But a sense of continuity may be just the safety zone we can add to achieve a better customer acquisition rate. Not only that, but think about the end users affected during a project. Continuity could be an adoption driver for them, adding a level of success to projects that builds better long-term relationships.

Who's Reading Your Email Communications?

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and she said she was outsourcing her email. She plans to hire a virtual assistant to take care of that mundane task - she doesn't have the time.

Which made me start thinking about who was actually reading the emails marketing sends. If marketing spends their time creating personas and profiles of their prospects and developing marketing messages intended to be relevant and personalized, just for them, what happens when their virtual or executive assistant is the one sifting through their email?

And I've no doubt more of this is coming. Although I relish my email and I'd be terrified to turn it over to someone else, I'm betting that there are a lot of people who aren't quite as thrilled about slogging through a bunch of stuff looking for something to make their day.

I also happen to know someone who sends everything to archives except people on his white list, sentencing those messages to that "someday" when he might have extra time. I addressed a similar issue a while back in a post called Are You In Your Lead's Silos?

Salespeople have dealt with "gatekeepers" for a long time, but what about marketers? The onus is now on you — twice. Yep - twice. Here's why:

• First - Your communications have to be relevant to the interpretation the gatekeeper puts on the boss' instructions - relevant enough to get that person to pass on your communication to the boss. As an outside issue, that person is also on a different plane in the organization and may hear or deal with issues that further color their perception of the message you send, or what the instructions mean.


• Second - Once the boss gets it, it had better be relevant to him/her, as well. Otherwise it will reflect badly on the assistant, and believe me, that mistake won't happen twice.
  

You're not developing that content to meet the needs of one audience, but two. And this scenario gets more likely every day - depending on who you sell to, of course. Then again, what if virtual assistants become more prevalent? Have you factored in the persona of your potential gatekeepers?

Lack of Measurement Means Ineffective Marketing

A new survey of 3,000 global marketers has concluded that marketing effectiveness has reached an all-time low.  Those surveyed said that "65% of their marketing spend had no discernible effect on consumer behavior in 2007."

That's even worse that the old adage about 50% of your marketing being wasted, but not knowing which half. However, the reason is pretty much the same - lack of measurement.

According to the article, "Of the 55% of marketers who track their spending, 80% do so manually, spending hours gathering and analyzing data. Only one in 10 marketers surveyed had automated systems in place to track the effectiveness of their spend."

Manual tracking is too complex and, with all those hours of analysis, too late. Besides that, marketers are being charged to deliver more highly qualified leads, move faster and do more with less. They are also charged to prove their results, hence the brave attempts to measure a myriad of siloed activities at all.

Which seems a shame given the marketing automation systems available that can help you accomplish many of those tasks with a much higher degree of efficiency and a variety of insights unavailable otherwise.

One of the biggest examples is the difference between segment and individual data. Looking at group trends is one thing. Honing in on a lead showing increased momentum and specific interests to get them to sales at exactly the opportune time is another. Think about it this way:

Just like you don't have time or inclination to speak with a salesperson who calls and says, "Tell me about your company and how we can help you," you also don't have time to waste the opportunity to engage the attention of your prospects.   

What if you had the capability to be relevant every time you communicated with them? And, what if - when they were ready - your salesperson contacted them with a seamless extension of the dialogue they were already having with marketing?

The only way this type of experience happens is if you can measure interest, response and related follow-on activities and share it with sales. Measurement is not just about numbers, it's about assessing how to generate momentum based on relevancy. It's about real-time discovery of engagement and working to extend that attention, gathering more intelligence about each step of the buyer's cycle. It's about leveraging those insights to move prospects farther through the pipeline than you've ever done before. It's about marketing's contribution to downstream revenues and benchmarking improvements marketing can drive into sales productivity achievements.

And finally, it's about being able to produce those results repeatedly.

I'll get off my soap box now, but if this isn't an indication about the need for solid strategic marketing efforts backed up by automation tools, I'm not quite sure what will cause a shift in thinking about the imperative to flip that statistic on its head.

Is Trigger Content in Your Strategy?

Most B2B companies have piles of content about their products and how great their company is, but how many of you have content designed around Triggering Events that impact your prospective customers?

You may be running a terrific nurturing campaign where you've been measuring good response and noted an increase in momentum. Life looks good, right? Then it suddenly stalls. This doesn't necessarily mean your prospects and customers have lost interest, but it may very well indicate a priority shift that influences which business objective has their primary attention. Instead of letting them go, re-engage them by using trigger content.

This is when monitoring the industries you serve for changes that can shuffle priorities can help you develop content that answers the Urgency Catch Factor. [Haven't read the eBook yet?]

Triggering events within an industry can be new legislation, new innovations by top competitors in the industry, mergers and acquisitions, etc. Company specific triggering events can also be executive shake-ups, end-of-quarter results and a variety of others.

Take a look at how your products and offerings can help them answer these new challenges and keep them moving forward. Pare everything but the essentials away and address the most urgent component your expertise can impact. This means getting rid of all the jargony expressions that include robust, dramatic, expansive, etc. Focus on the meat and nail their concerns quickly, concisely and with evidence that shows you deliver what you promise. Don't expect them to figure out that your offering solves their newly framed problem on their own. They don't have the time. You need to make sure it's obvious.

A shake-up in the status quo has ramifications across the enterprise that may have your prospects and customers scrambling to accommodate. A spot-on communication that simplifies what they're trying to grasp will get their attention—and get you in the conversation.

If you're keeping your ear tuned to the industries you serve and applying your insights to the results your nurturing programs are producing, you can react quickly, boost your credibility, and actually gain momentum by staying relevant with your prospect's priorities.

Junta42 Announces Top Marketing Blogs

Some of you may have noticed the new "badge" the blog is wearing. I'm very honored to tell you that Marketing Interactions is ranked at #4 in the new Top 42 Marketing Blogs list out from Junta42 this week. Here's the announcement from Joe Pulizzi, who mans the helm of the portal.

One of the reasons I really like this list [besides the fact that I'm on it] is that the Junta42 folks actually judged the blogs according to a set of criteria, plus they're allowing visitors to the site to vote for (Hitch, as they call it) whichever blogs you think are the best. You'll find a number of blogs you already know about and hopefully a few new ones that have something you need.

Junta42's definition: "Content marketing is all about the creation of great, story-form content (delivered through any channel) that ultimately influences someone to buy your product, take an action, or believe in a cause."

The portal itself is an invitation to all of you to share content you find from around the web that you think will be helpful to other marketers intent on elevating their content marketing efforts. I'm hoping it will become the melting pot for all kinds of terrific insights about what's possible for content marketing. Because the time is never going to get any better than right now to build a better story.

Go visit, contribute and Hitch the posts and blogs you like. There are some excellent resources and contributors out there already.

Free eBook: Catch Me, If You Can

This eBook explores the 5 Catch Factors and how, by appealing to them, your content and communications are set to catch your lead's attention—and keep it—from their early buying stages through sales readiness. Catch Factors command your lead's attention, increase mindshare and accelerate buying behaviors.

Download the eBook: Catch Me, If You Can

The Power of Personalization Study

If you found my eBook, Catch Me, If You Can, to offer interesting insights about how to capture attention, you should go participate in The Power of Personalization study the CMO Council is conducting.

They are doing research to find out how marketers are handling the technology advances in data analytics and individualized content delivery as they attempt to personalize their interactions with prospects and customers. And, wouldn't we all like to know what our peers are doing, what's working and what's not? Well, you'll get a copy of the results if you go participate, so take a few minutes and contribute your insights.

The the research will address

• the degree to which companies are embracing (or not yet embracing) personalized communication strategies;
• the state-of-the-art tools and technologies available today; and
• the direct relationship between customized delivery of marketing message and sales performance.

Participation in the study is open until February 8th and it only takes 15 minutes.

Go take the survey!

Catch Me, If You Can - free eBook!

This eBook explores the 5 Catch Factors and how, by appealing to them, your content and communications are set to catch your lead's attention—and keep it—from their early buying stages through sales readiness. Attention is a diminishing resource marketers work very hard to capture. What your target market perceives as valuable can be elusive—but it doesn't have to be.

Catch Factors command your lead's attention, increase mindshare and accelerate buying behaviors.

The difference between content and communications that are valuable—or merely useful—is often the tipping point for attention. Catch Me, If You Can is a guide for using Catch Factors to evaluate and tune every marketing communication's ability to catch higher attention and engagement. 

So, what are Catch Factors?

Catch Factors are the preferences and aversions that form a lead’s “gut” reaction to your communication. They help determine whether you capture your audiences’ attention—or not. They include split-second assessments about their urgency for your information (e.g. does it apply to a real problem they have right now), whether or not you can impact their professional success, the effort required to access and process the information, and, finally, on their perception of your company’s reputation and intent. The importance a recipient places on each of these five Catch Factors affects the attention you get—and the downstream revenue results.

I've included an assessment worksheet at the back of the eBook to help you get started.

Download the eBook: Catch Me, If You Can - no registration required.

My Biggest Influencers Meme

Tom Pick, over on the WebMarketCentral blog tagged me to write about the people who most influenced my life. He never asks me the easy questions, but I'll persevere...

My father. Yes, there seems to always be a parent in these, but I'm thinking that's a good thing. When I was 7 years old, I wanted a horse. Boy, did I want a horse! I thought for sure that I'd get one for my birthday that year, but all I was given was a flat wrapped box. Definitely too small to hold a horse.

Inside was what had been a picture of a horse that had been cut into puzzle pieces. Lots of them. He told me that I could earn one piece for every two hours I put in working at his company after school. I know he thought I'd bail before I earned them all, thus saving him the headache and expense of a horse, but I made it. Took me six months of toiling, but I earned my horse.

After that, I had a system. Every time I wanted something else, I'd take Dad a picture of it and the scissors and then I'd get back to work.

My 4th Grade Teacher. This is terrible, but I cannot remember her name. However, she's the one who captivated me with my fascination for reading and writing. I wanted to write about everything after spending a year under her guidance.

She had a way of encouraging her students to embrace talents they were passionate about. That ability to motivate has never been matched by another teacher, and I've had a lot of them. Writing is a talent that's held me in good stead throughout my life and is still paying off. Thank God for teachers like her!

Jennifer Kerouac. Jeni was my best friend's daughter. When she was three, she almost drowned, but survived with all her mental faculties, if not her motor skills. She was the most gracious and wonderful person I've ever known, so open to everyone and everything. And it wasn't easy to be different from everyone else back then, either. But the ugliness never touched her.

She lived about twenty years longer than the doctors back then said she would and, up until the end, she took joy in all the small things most of us take for granted. She could also communicate more with a look than most people can with a speech. I miss her immensely, but know she's off doing something great somewhere else.

There are a lot of others I could name here, but I'm going to stop with those three. They were huge influences in my life and taught me a lot about perseverance, using my talents and grace under pressure.

And, I'm going to be a Meme fizzler and not tag anyone else. Sorry Tom.