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contents

BY CHRISTOPHER HOSFORD

F OR CONNIE Stack, VP-sales andmarketing at Wordstream, acompany that helps small and

midsize companies optimize theirsearch marketing efforts, the twomost important lead-generation met-rics are determining the effectivenessof the lead source and the lead offer.

Once she knows these two things,Stack can get a pretty good glimpseinto how Wordstream’s lead-gen ef-forts are working. But for a companythat’s generating thousands of poten-tial leads a week, the hard part ismaking sense of these trends.

“These are not sales-ready leadsor candidates,” Stack said. “Youneed some place to put them first, aprocess to continue the dialogue un-til they hit that point where they’reready to purchase.”

Wordstream, just 2 years old, gen-erates most of its queries via its ownsearch marketing and optimization ef-forts. Stack parses customer interest inthe 15 to 20 offers that are on theWordstream site at any one time, en-compassing everything from newslet-ter signups to demos and free softwaretrials. To aid this process, she uses

marketing management solutionsfrom Manticore Technologies.

“This sets up the rules, letting usknow how much attention to pay tovarious lead types—how much toglean, for example, from someonewho downloads a white paper, orwho is ready for a free software tri-al,” Stack said. “For a company witha relatively small inside sales force,automated lead scoring is essential totrigger sales alerts.”

AUTOMATION IMPORTANCELead-generation management is

typified today by a plethora of mar-keting automation solutions that as-sess prospects’ online behaviors todetermine where they are in the salespipeline. In a post-recessionary econ-omy, automating the process is moreimportant than ever, according toLaura Ramos, VP-industry market-ing for Xerox Global Services, NorthAmerica.

”The world has changed,” saidRamos, a former Forrester Researchanalyst and b-to-b marketing blog-ger. “Last year was a boom year forthe lead management and automa-tion vendors, as marketing budgetswere slashed. But marketing bud-

gets are still tight, and marketers arefinding they can’t do more with lesswithout automation.”

Because of this, Ramos said, it’sfairly easy to make the businesscase for purchasing some form ofmarketing automation designed torun online campaigns, capture re-

sponses, profile prospects withsome form of scoring and turn goodleads over to sales.

It’s the continuing conversationthat counts.

“If you think about it, if you as-sume that your product has value, it’snot a matter of if the prospect willbuy but, rather, when,” said Christo-pher Doran, VP-marketing at Manti-core. The key is having a solution thatautomates the nurturing process, hesaid, because “if your conversationsend, you won’t be top-of-mind.”

Key to any lead-scoring system,automated or not, is a common un-derstanding between marketing andsales as to what constitutes a lead,Doran said.

“Marketing and sales still struggleto agree on what a sales-qualified leadis,” he said. “That’s where the blamegame begins. You need to lock theVPs of marketing and sales in a roomuntil they agree, down to the details,about what a qualified lead is.”

Marketers need to get a little hum-ble here, Doran said. He estimatesthat sales generates about 70% of thepipeline and marketing just 30%.But, he said, the process can be boileddown to a handful of principles:

■ There should be no clear dis-tinction between sales and market-ing. Both must work together.

■ Marketers should “think be-yond quantity.”

■ Marketingautomation isn’t acure-all if a com-pany can’t under-stand its own pro-cess of lead gener-ation and nurtur-ing prior to thesales hand-off.

“You don’tknow what you don’t know,” Doransaid. “The process piece of market-ing is relatively new. You need theskill sets to think of this as a process.”

STILL NOT PERVASIVEWhile the use of marketing au-

tomation is growing, it’s far from per-vasive, perhaps used by no more thana quarter of companies, Doran said.And for many companies, even thosethat use some form of marketing au-tomation, more traditional methodshelp the process immeasurably.

Ann Smith, director-marketingprograms at MarkLogic Corp., has anintriguing challenge in getting andnurturing leads. In promoting theuse of MarkLogic software solutions,which aggregate, repurpose and de-liver content in multiple formats,Smith must convince prospects—of-ten in person—that MarkLogic au-tomation is better than the waythey’ve been doing it.

“Lead-gen for us is just getting inthat first hook into an organization,”Smith said. “Education is really im-portant in a complex sale. Technically,we’re selling a new idea to a lot of peo-ple. There’s not a lot of things they cancompare it to.”

As a result, MarkLogic partici-pates in many trade shows and oth-er live events. The company’s de-mand generation agency, BulldogSolutions, also is tapped to helpstage webinars to demonstrateMarkLogic products and help buildprospect lists.

“For the government sector inparticular, where it’s hard to reachpeople, live events are important,”Smith said. “If we select our eventscarefully, we’re able to have verygood conversations with people, tounderstand their pains and whatthey’re experiencing. We want to beproblem-solvers.”

But Smith added that, in finallydetermining what’s a good lead,marketing has its limits.

“At this stage, determining a full-qualified lead is not something mar-keting can really do,” she said.“Even if somebody downloaded awhite paper or attended a webinar,we rely on the people on the phoneto dig further, to see if there is a fit.Ultimately, you need that live conversation.” �

Automation key asresources dwindleMarketers hoping to keep on top of customerbehaviors and interaction are relying on tools

4 | BtoB’s Lead Generation Guide | 2010 | btobonline.com

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AUL KENJORA IS founder and CTO of Arkayne Inc.(www.arkayne.com), whose technology auto-mates link-building to related websites. BtoB re-

cently asked Kenjora about how strong and appropri-ate online content can inspire conversations, nurtureleads and boost conversions.

BtoB: What factors influence the success of contentmarketing?

Kenjora: Information gathering is a key step tocontent marketing. To get results, first identify your au-dience. Second, you need to assess your existing mate-rial as a fit for that audience. Marketers that tailor con-tent for a specific customer segment will become more effectiveat engaging customers in both search and social media.

Content that is targeted at specific customer segments hasthe added benefit of improving search engine optimization cam-paigns. As the number of search keywords increases, more specif-ic content can improve your likelihood of being found.

BtoB: What about the tone or level of that marketing content?Kenjora: The conversational nature of social media has

impacted consumer behavior in the traditional online space, espe-cially with regards to tone and directness. Presenting people withinformation they want, even when the material is only mildly asso-ciated with your product or service, has a much greater effect thanpushing blatant sales material and lead-capture forms. However,remember that when prospects do locate you, you’ll have a fewprecious seconds to convince them to stay.

BtoB: Should content marketing get into product features orcompetitor comparisons?

Kenjora: This is a tricky question. The short answer is to do both

but with a catch. Businesses want their websites to focuson value propositions for the specific audience segmentsthey are trying to engage. SEO campaigns in traditionalsearch should then be focused on competitive terms forthat segment. Common to both search and social mediais the need to understand your customer segment, aswell as how your competitors play there. Here, your con-tent assessment will reveal gaps to address, such ascountering your competitors’ strengths and highlight-ing your own unique attributes that differentiate yourofferings. Evaluate specific themes, engaging topics,types of content and the keywords attached to each,

and gauge what performs well via search queries.Additionally, and important to note, the social media space is

still young and has fewer manners. It’s OK to directly engage withconsumers who are specifically complaining about competitors.If done in a friendly, helpful manner, others will start differentiat-ing you from the competition as a better alternative. The socialmedia content is just as important here for competitivebenchmarking as any other content searched for on the Web.

BtoB:What about purposing content for specific marketing needs?Kenjora: Content marketing requires volume, so reflect again

on whom you want to reach. Zero in on the best performingtypes of content for your audience, and develop a budget andproduction calendar that guides the distribution frequency yourresources can support. If your frequency expectations fall short,consider agencies that specialize in content development. Also,think about utility as your team or agency builds content. For ex-ample, a company that markets conference planning andsupport services can appeal to event planners with videos about

meeting destinations, custom calculators that estimate hotel ser-vice costs and articles about managing travel logistics. These ma-terials shouldn’t hawk your services, but rather should share ad-vice. Your prospects will come to trust you as their go-to sourcefor such knowledge and will want to do business with you.

BtoB: Content can be tailored for specific customers as well, right?Kenjora: Absolutely. Putting relevant content in front of Web visi-

tors immediately, based on their interests and behaviors, diminishestheir need to spend time searching, or getting frustrated and leavingaltogether. Techniques beyond basic SEO can help you fine-tunecontent and capture maximum visibility for each piece of content.Context-aware tools, for example, profile Web visitors and predictwhat kinds of information will be most useful for them while they arebrowsing. In addition, cross-linking content within your network ofsites and with other sites for sharing across social communities alsocan expand the reach of your material. Tap social media to seek outideal customers who in tandem can aid your rise to first-page searchstatus as they pass your content through their networks.

BtoB: How about measuring success?Kenjora: Routine checkups are required to achieve and main-

tain success, and often uncover ideas for improvement. Youshould track social media mentions, links to your site andinquiries or sales by content and referral source.

Google Analytics and similar free tools exist to get you started,and more advanced features and alternative systems are reason-ably priced. Use these measurement tools throughout the courseof your programs rather than just at the end. And don’t rely onkeyword analysis too much; customers read content, notkeywords. A focus entirely on keywords generates content thatonly machines and algorithms care about. �

PAUL KENJORACTO, Arkayne

Inc.

leading off

“Marketers arefinding they can’t domore with lesswithout automation.”Laura Ramos, VP-industry marketing,Xerox Global Services, North America

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“One word tokeep in mind is‘relevance.’ Seg-mentation by in-dustry or buyerpersonae is criti-cal. Knowingwhat stage your

audience is at in the buying cycle isalso important. Investing in the righttools and process is key. We’velearned that nurture strategies are sig-nificantly different from demand gen-eration strategies, and we’re doing alot of testing to optimizeperformance. For example, we’re in-troducing our sales leaders to ournurture audiences to create a morepersonal experience. We’re drivingtraffic to market-specific resourcecenters, in addition to providing rele-vant offer pieces, so that the audiencehas more information to consider, de-pending on their stage in the buyingcycle. And we’re testing solution-fo-cused webinars delivered by Motoro-la experts to accelerate the sales cycle.It’s all about finding the right mix oftechniques [that] keep our brand top-of-mind and move prospects to cus-tomers to consistently improve ROI.”

—Eduardo ConradoCorporate VP-global

marketing and communications,Motorola Inc.

“The key to effective leadnurturing is customizationand personali-zation. Usingtoday’s technol-ogy, we amass a

huge amount of information about

our prospects, from demographicinformation to interests. Thisenables us to better understand theprospects’ business problems andbuying habits. As smart marketers,we can combine that informationwith technology that delivers anongoing stream of customized, per-sonalized content to the prospects.The result is prospects view our or-ganizations as trusted experts inthe forefront of our industries,which produces stronger lead con-version rates.”

—Gina Sandon VP-marketing,

Initiate, an IBM company

“You have to fo-cus on thecustomer andcommunicate onthat customer’spremise. I believethat most of usare not reallythinking about

the customer’s process and how theyare trying to buy our product. Fiveyears ago, we had one way wethought about marketing, which wasa seller’s journey—how do we sell,how do we get into the account andhow do we push out our products?One big tool that really helped us tobecome successful with our transfor-mation is engaging a whole conversa-tion around the buyer’s journey. Whatare the typical personas, what types ofprocesses are they responsible for andwhat are their key issues?”

—Leif PedersonVP-marketing,

Siemens Product LifecycleManagement Software

“First was reallyclarifying theroles andresponsibilitiesof the people [in sales andmarketing]—defining who

was doing what, making sure therewere clear handoffs [of leads], notduplicating efforts and understand-ing who needed to be involved. Wealso defined common processes andworked with SiriusDecisions on ourdemand waterfall. We made sure wespoke the same language. For exam-ple, what is a lead and what does itmean when sales accepts a lead?”

—Heidi MelinSenior VP-CMO, Polycom Inc.

“Well-built nur-tures are like thefamily fish: Theyneed food to sur-vive. Many nur-ture programs aredesigned with aspecific start andend date in mind.

That is the exact wrong approach. Bydesign, a nurture should be perpetual.To do this, the marketer needs to havea set of strategies and tactics to contin-ue to ‘feed the nurture’ fresh contactinformation. Be creative, and use allthe means at your disposal. Some easytactics are website capture, contentsyndication, events, rented lists andthe in-house list. If you have the prop-er feeding schedule, your nurture willpay you in leads for a long time.”

—Mac McConnellPresident,

BlueBird Strategies

“The mostimportant thingis that we have asingle globalprocess and re-porting systemthat allows us todo closed-loop

lead measurement so we canmeasure the status of a lead from in-quiry through a closed deal. Withthe integration between our salesand marketing automation systems,we can also track all marketing pro-grams to understand the full historyof activity associated with a lead.”

—Maxine GrahamSenior director-global integrated

marketing and operations, Blue Coat Systems

“To quote theNew York Lotto,‘You gotta be init to win it.’ Putsimply, you mustnurture leads.As b-to-b mar-keters, we invest

so much time and money in findingnew leads that it’s pure foolishness tolet them go too easily. Holding on tohand-raisers until the time is right,or taking back leads from sales thatneed to ripen, is about protectingyour marketing investment. Not tonurture is to throw money away.”

—Megan HeuerResearch director,

SiriusDecisions Inc.

“The most sig-nificant leadnurturing trendwe see in themarketplace isthe use of socialmedia to enrichthis essential

part of the sales process. Contentsuch as video, white papers, casestudies, webinars and press releasesare easily distributed through vari-ous social media channels. As this ishappening, both prospects and ex-isting customers see your content intheir social media feeds, and thisserves as a powerful reminder of

your relevance, thought leadershipand momentum, all of which arecritical influence triggers that helpyou stay engaged with customersand accelerate the sales process.”

—Michael BirdChief revenue officer,

NetProspex Inc.

“Don’t try to boilthe ocean at first.There are somany kinds ofnurturing withdifferent objec-tives, and somany popula-

tions in your database, that it’s easy toget overwhelmed when you are justbeginning the process. Start with thesection of your database that you areleast likely to harm—for example,dormant leads or pure suspects. Cutyour teeth there instead of going di-rectly after existing customers or in-terrupting active sales conversationswith your message.”

—Ann SmithDirector-marketing programs,

MarkLogic Corp.

“It’s shockinghow many com-panies simplyhaven’t pin-pointed whotheir customertruly is, whichcreates a huge

drip marketing list with very few po-tential customers in it. Therefore,generate several qualifying questionsand use them to filter the leads inyour pipeline. Not all leads are creat-ed equal. Some are just starting downthe evaluation path while others havemoney in their hands waiting to buy.Knowing where the client is in thebuying process and addressing theirneeds is crucial. For example, if a po-tential customer is in the researchphase of buying, sending a white pa-per may be more effective than offer-ing a product discount, whereas if acustomer is ready to buy, the oppo-site is true.”

—Dave ScottCEO,Marketfish Inc.

The Big Question

‘What is one critical lessonyou’ve learned abouteffective lead nurturing?’


leading off

BY KATE MADDOX

I NDUSTRY ANALYSTS and peers arethe most influential sources of in-formation for b-to-b buyers dur-

ing the purchasing process, al-though buyers will also considercontent from vendors if it is valu-able, according to a new report fromsales and marketing advisory firmSiriusDecisions.

The report, “SiriusDecisions B-to-BBuyer’s Survey 2010,” was based on anonline survey of more than 600 b-to-bmarketers conducted in April andMay. The results were presented at theSiriusDecisions 2010 Summit inScottsdale, Ariz., earlier this month.

The survey examined sources ofinformation b-to-b buyers considerduring different stages of the buyingprocess and the influence of each ontheir purchase decision. The surveywas last conducted in 2006.

One key finding in this year’s sur-vey was an increase in the number ofmarketing campaigns b-to-b buyersare exposed to weekly. The totalnumber of campaigns increasedfrom an average 15.4 per week in2006 to an average 20.3 per weekthis year, an increase of 31.8%.

“We saw a surge of ‘trying to fillthe pipeline as much as we can,’ ”said John Neeson, managing direc-tor of SiriusDecisions. However, hesaid, “When we look at best-prac-tice organizations, they typically do30% fewer efforts than their peers.They do fewer campaigns, but theyare more targeted.”

ANALYSTS MOST TRUSTEDThe most trusted sources of infor-

mation overall are industry analysts(cited by 31.4% of respondents) andpeers (28.7%). There has been an in-

crease in the influence of peers since2006, when they were cited by only21.7% of respondents as a trustedsource. (Survey respondents couldselect more than one response.)

The influence of vendors as atrusted source of information hasalso increased, from only 3.3% ofbuyers who cited them as a trustedsource in 2006 to 8.1% this year.

“Buyers are willing to have en-gagement with vendors if they canbring very valuable content,” Nee-son said. He pointed to Chuck’s Blog,written by Chuck Hollis, VP-globalmarketing and chief technology offi-cer at IT company EMC, who blogson topics such as virtual storage andcloud computing.

“This is a good example of devel-oping thought leadership in themarketplace,” he said.

SiriusDecisions also examined

the influence of different sources ofcontent in the early, middle and latestages of the buying process.

In the early stage, the most influ-ential sources of information for b-to-b buyers are internal events ortriggers (cited by 31.1% of respon-dents), peers (24%), industry ana-lysts (15.6%) and trade publications(13.3%). Search engine results werecited by only 4.4% as trustedsources; consultants, by only 2.2%.

“In the early stages, it is importantto provide more content and refer-ences,” said Alden Cushman, re-search director at SiriusDecisions,who co-presented the survey results.

The most favored sources of con-tent during the early stages of b-to-bdecision-making are white papers(64.4%), peer referrals (51.1%), webinars (48.9%), trials or demos(42.2%) and analyst reports

(37.8%), the survey found.In the middle stages of buying,

the most influential sources are peers(22.7%), industry analysts (15.9%),trade publications (15.9%), vendors(11.4%) and internal events (11.4%).

Notably, the influence of vendorsin the middle stage has gone up since2006, when they were cited as a trust-ed source by only 3.5% of buyers.

In the late stages of decision-mak-ing, the most trusted sources arepeers (28.9%), industry analysts(20.0%), trade publications (11.1%),consultants (8.9%) and search en-gine results (8.9%).

“To really get above the clutter,you have to show thought leader-ship,” Alden said. “You have to iden-tify key channels, target messagesto certain people at certain places

and put together a framework for messaging.” �

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BY KATE MADDOX

BLUE COAT Systems, whichdevelops secure Web gate-way and application-delivery

network technologies, was strug-gling with the challengesof rapid growth, outdatedsystems and a lack ofalignment between mar-keting and sales.

“As a company with over $500million in revenue, trying to achieveour first billion, we had a lot of chal-lenges,” said Maxine Graham, se-nior director-global integrated mar-keting and operations at Blue Coat.“We are in a high-growth phase.We had a lot of legacy stuff to dealwith. We have a global sales force.We sell through a channel, and weare getting more customer seg-ments, channels and partners.

“Our problem was that ‘moment

of truth’ when we realized that salesand marketing were using the samedata, but reporting different results.”

She listed some of the problems:Marketing and sales data resided in

multiple systems and re-quired complex custom re-porting; marketing and saleshad different definitions forthe same terms; and the sys-

tems and processes were very NorthAmerica-centered.

After realizing these deficienciesabout 15 months ago, sales and mar-keting decided to launch a joint ini-tiative to more closely align the twofunctions and build common sys-tems and processes, as well as man-age and nurture leads.

The goals of the project were toensure data integrity; build closed-loop systems to track leads fromstart to finish; develop tighter data

integration between sales and mar-keting automation systems; estab-lish common definitions, terminolo-gy and business processes withinsales and marketing; prove a defensi-ble marketing ROI; and adhere to in-dustry best practices.

“It was a joint effort between mar-keting, sales and marketing opera-tions,” Graham said. The teams work-ing on the project included market-ing and sales operations, field market-ing, channel marketing, inside sales,tech reps from sales and marketingautomation platforms, and executivesponsorship from senior marketingand sales management.

Peter Johnson, senior manager ofmarketing operations at Blue Coat,said the first step in the process wasan internal audit and “gap analysis”of all existing systems and processeswithin sales and marketing.

“First, we needed to understandwhere we were,” he said. The auditincluded a comprehensive reviewof Blue Coat’s sales force automa-tion (Salesforce.com) and market-ing automation (Eloqua) platforms;metrics and reporting processes;data integration issues; campaignmanagement; and lead-scoringprocesses.

The company also looked at in-dustry best practices and workedwith consultancy SiriusDecisions todevelop new processes.

The next phase included creatingstandard terminology between salesand marketing; defining data re-quirements; developing new busi-ness processes (such as getting asmuch information from sales as pos-sible without asking them to do toomuch work to provide it); and im-plementing consistent global report-ing systems.

Next, Blue Coat put into placenew systems and processes, includ-ing data cleansing, a lead-scoringupdate, a centralized lead-routingstructure, shared dashboards for

marketing and sales, and training forthe sales teams.

Finally, it monitored, measuredand refined the systems.

“You have to make a tremendousamount of compromises when youare going through this process,” John-son said. “From the sales operationsview, it was a joint project; it was ‘so-cialized,’ and it was agreed to. We al-ways put data integrity and processesin front of system limitations.”

Since implementing the newsystem, Blue Coat has seen dramaticresults.

“Now we have lead status report-ing—we know what stage a lead isin and who owns it. We have closed-loop metrics from lead to acquisi-tion. We know how many deals areinfluenced by marketing or sales,”Graham said.

Pointing to some of the key re-sults, she said marketing-qualified-lead (MQL) conversions are up108%; marketing contribution tothe pipeline is up 68%; marketingcontribution to wins is up 73%; andleads to the channel are up 34%. �

CaseStudy

Blue Coat Systems gets resultswith marketing/sales integration


M IDWEST EMPLOYERS CasualtyCo. markets workers com-pensation insurance to risk

managers at corporations and pub-lic organizations, as well as to inde-pendent insurance brokers. Facing aheavily competitive marketplace,MECC needed to set itself apart fromits competitors and showcase itshighly service-oriented products.

“The world views insurance as acommodity; when you watch insur-ance commercials on TV, they’re alltalking price,” said Steven Link,exec VP-marketing at MECC. “Theinsurance industry for the most parthas allowed this, and our campaignwas an attempt to address it.”

Video became the company’schoice as central to a direct-mailcampaign. MECC felt that a power-ful piece, filled with compelling per-sonal stories of injury, treatment andrecovery, would convey its corpo-rate philosophy better than any oth-

er medium.“The type of cases we see, the

losses we cover, are catastrophic innature—as is the impact to the fami-lies,” Link said. “We’re the humanelement of the insurance we pro-vide, and that’s what we wanted toget across in the video. All the collat-eral material we produce doesn’thave the same impact as video.”

Link also believed that a cam-paign stressing the company’s pre-mium service could be best con-veyed in video format.

“We’re a value play,” he said.“We made the decision more than adecade ago that we would provideextraordinary value, rather than bea low-cost provider, and appeal tocustomers who don’t jump ship overour being 15% to 20% higher thanthe competition.”

Using St. Louis-based MercuryMultimedia to produce the video,MECC coordinated 26 one-on-oneinterviews with employees and cus-

tomers, and Mercury shot and gath-ered footage of MECC and customerwork environments.

“As a creative storyteller, our firstchallenge is how to embody the mes-sage,” said Angie Lawing, executiveproducer with Mercury Multime-dia. “We immersed ourselves inworkers’ compensation insurance toknow what it would be like to be apart of this industry.”

To ensure that MECC’s storywould strike an emotional chord,Mercury also tracked down footageof an injured employee of one ofMECC’s customers and detailed his

recovery. The final cut was pack-aged in a specially designed DVDcase that could be mailed toprospects and distributed at mar-keting events.

MECC sent the video to a databaseof about 10,000 of its top customersand prospects, as well as about 1,200insurance brokers. The cost of eachmailing was about $2, added to the$20,000 production costs.

It’s featured on the MECC website,segments of it have been used in liveslideshow presentations and webinars,and the video is an abiding presence atMECC’s trade show booths.

“People come to us with one pri-mary use of a video and then findthat it will be useful for five or sixother things,” Lawing said. “It haslegs as a marketing campaign tool.”

Within weeks of the campaign’skickoff, MECC secured two newcustomers exclusively due to thevideo, representing about $1 millionin new business, according to thecompany. The video remains themost-watched asset on MECC’s web-site, and Mercury Multimedia isworking on a video series for thecompany to be part of future mar-keting campaigns.

“It’s been good for us, a real differ-entiation in the marketplace at a timewhen we needed it,” Link said. “Thevalue play works, but you have tocommunicate it. You have to find acompelling way to tell your story,and the video is the most compellingway we’ve come up with yet.”

Originally published Oct. 12, 2009

Many marketers knowthey need, and des-perately want, lead

management systems andprocesses, but are worriedabout their ability to imple-ment them. Marketers are allresource-constrained, so thequestion is, “How can theystart down the path of im-proved lead managementwithout overhauling their en-tire operations in a lengthythree to six-month imple-mentation?”

The good news is thatlead management can really be taken in steps.Yes, for maximum return you need to imple-ment all components and processes, from web-site to close of sale. But you don’t need to takeadvantage of all the features right at the begin-ning of implementation.

Start out small, improving on what you are

doing today. And be sure to lay out a well-de-signed and realistic path of steps to start reap-ing incremental lead-management benefits,while also understanding how to grow yoursystems and processes over time.

Here are some guideposts along the way:■■ Set realistic goals. The first step is to de-

fine your goals in the short-, mid- and long-term. By doing this, you can measure progressas you go and see the results you’ve made alongthe way. Short-term goals can be as simple asincreasing click-throughs or conversions of e-mail marketing programs, or implementing anurturing component within existing cam-paigns and seeing what effect it has on qualityof outbound calls.

■■ Get sales buy-in. Working with sales isone of your first steps when implementing alead-management system. Think of your mid-to-long-term goals in particular, and how toevaluate the marketing-to-sales process bydefining what a sales-ready lead really is with-in your organization.

■■ Identify initial campaigns and steps. It’s im-portant to evaluate where to start—namely,where you can get some immediate value with-out consuming the entire marketing departmentor missing current targets/campaigns. This pri-marily depends on what you are currently doingand what you can facilitate moving forward.

Some companies might start by segmentingand targeting their prospects with e-newslet-ters, whereas others might implement an ap-proach to track and nurture in-bound leadsfrom their AdWords campaigns. It’s importantto keep it simple and focus on the benefits youcan realistically and quickly achieve.

■■ Lead-to-sales process considerations.How do you want leads to pass to your salesteam? Some companies choose to keep theirprocess the same, such as moving all leads tosales. Others might choose to implement basicscoring and move only those leads to sales thatmeet a basic set of criteria. The important fac-tor is to start simple, measure and adjust.

■■ Metrics now and later. After the basics

are accomplished, it’s time to upgrade yourthinking about analytics and your under-standing of what’s working and what’s not.Here, you’ll want to go beyond tracking justopens and clicks, and consider ongoing behav-ior and marketing effectiveness. You couldperhaps start by tracking the increase in con-versions by campaign. Later, you could trackthe number of sales-ready leads generated bycampaign, and revenue by campaign. You’llneed to test, measure and refine.

It’s imperative to drive value with yourlead-management system, both initially and inthe future, based on your company’s resources,budget and needs. By doing this, and by takingthe small steps outlined above, you can gainsome immediate ROI as well as the visibility toincrease your marketing effectiveness.

Lisa Cramer is president of LeadLife Solutions(www.leadlife.com), a provider of on-demandlead-management software. She can bereached at [email protected].

FFoolllloowwiinngg tthhee ppaatthhwwaayy ttoo ssuucccceessssffuull lleeaadd mmaannaaggeemmeenntt


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Company URL Phone Product Description

Alinean Inc. www.alinean.com (407) 382-0005 Alinean XcelLive SaaS platform that converts spreadsheet-based sales tools into enterprise, database-driven applications. Itallows authoring, editing and maintaining of designs such as screen layouts, surveys and research metrics.Includes assessment and comparison tools, ROI and TCO analysis

Aprimo Inc. www.aprimo.com (317) 803-4300 Aprimo Marketing Studio Integrated marketing software; lead nuturing and scoring, target segmentation, analytics, ad hoc,dashboard reporting, spend management, workflow and project management, brand asset library andmarketing calendar

CLP Suite www.clpsuite.com (773) 724-2323 CLP One, CLP Team, CLP Pro, CLPMax

Single-user; multi-user; salesforce automation add-on; premium CRM/SFA solution with enterprise-levelcustomization

Elateral www.elateral.com (877) 914-0789 Elateral MSP Brand marketing automation application that creates customizable templates and allows control ofelectronic distribution of materials to Web browsers of marketers to execute campaigns in one click

Eloqua www.eloqua.com (866) 327-8764 Eloqua Conversion Suite Campaign execution; generates and manages sales leads

Genius.com www.genius.com (888) 643-6487 Genius Enterprise Automated lead nurturing, real-time lead conversions and lead scoring

HubSpot Inc. www.hubspot.com (888) 482-7768 HubSpot Creates, optimizes and promotes content using blogs, social media and content management tools, aswell as SEO, page and link graders. Includes lead capturing, management and nurturing, along with CRMintegration, data comparison and analytics

Kutenda http://kutenda.com (877) 588-3632 Kutenda Online Marketing Suite Website management, pay-per-click ads, SEO optimization, runs detailed reports including reporting,comparison and data analysis tools

LeadGenesys www.leadgenesys.com (415) 392-0333 LeadGenesys Platform Website Caller ID with rules-based lead grading, nurturing and triggering of instant sales alerts

LeadLife Solutions www.leadlife.com (800) 680-6292 LeadLife Lead Management Suite On-demand solution; tracks, scores, prioritizes and nurtures leads

ManticoreTechnology

www.manticoretechnology.com

(512) 241-3780x310

Manticore Technology VII On-demand solution; lead generation, scoring and nurturing, list management

Market2Lead www.market2lead.com (408) 907-2821 Market2Lead Marketing automation software and services

Marketing Pilot www.marketingpilot.com (847) 864-4777 MarketingPilot LMO Sales lead tracking, distribution, management, nurturing, scoring, routing and qualification

MarketNet Services www.marketnetservices.com

(800) 790-6638 Incommand Marketing System Web-based; distributes leads to sales resources; responds to inquiries with personalized electronic andprint collateral; lead nurturing tools

Marketo www.marketo.com (650) 376-2300 Marketo Lead Management Manages lead generation, nurturing and scoring; tracks and prioritizes leads through website monitoring,e-mail marketing and landing page optimization

Neolane Inc. www.neolane.com (617) 467-6760 Neolane Lead ManagementOptimization

Optimizes demand generation, manages leads, measures results

Pardot www.pardot.com (404) 492-6845 Prospect Insight MarketingAutomation

Marketing automation platform; lead nurturing, scoring, activity tracking, landing page management ande-mail marketing

RightNowTechnologies

www.rightnow.com (406) 522-4200 RightNow CX Marketing automation software; tracks leads through the sales process

Salesforce.com www.salesforce.com (415) 907-7000 Salesforce Lead Management Application in Sales Management module; capabilities include online lead capture, history tracking andqualification

SAS www.sas.com (919) 677-8000 SAS Customer RelationshipManagement

Solutions for marketing resources management, interaction management and marketing optimization

Silverpop www.silverpop.com (678) 247-0500 Silverpop On-demand solution, lead management, scoring and nurturing, e-mail marketing and campaignmanagement, CRM integration, reporting and analytics

SmartLead byAdTrack

www.smartlead.com (319) 395-9777 SmartLead Lead management system; sales force automation system; lead analytics system; in-house marketingservices

Unica Corp. www.unica.com (877) 864-2261 Unica Leads Drives higher conversion rates; manages the qualification, enrichment, distribution, maturation andfeedback loop on leads

VeraCentra www.veracentra.com (707) 224-6161 VeraCentra Intelligence Integrated suite; access to data warehousing and data organization services

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large and small, mar-keters need to deter-mine the best way toreach customers andprospects. Ideally,this effort should bedriven by two keyquestions: First, howcan you be sure thepeople you’re mail-ing to are viableprospects? And sec-ond, how can youincrease the likeli-hood of response?

In their quest foranswers, some b-to-bmarketers are begin-ning to realize that

targeting communications using consumermarketing practices can deliver significantbenefits. Businesspeople are consumers, too,and often react well to b-to-c approaches thataddress their business concerns.

B-to-b marketers have fewer insights aboutbusiness targets, so more upfront work is re-quired to better understand them.

For example, geo-coding can add value bytargeting specific messages to customers andprospects located near sales or service facilities.Titles, business organization memberships andpatterns of engagement can also provide valu-able intelligence about customers, prospectsand their communications preferences.

Another effective targeted b-to-c marketingpractice is personalization. Most basically,you’d never want to send “Dear Prospect” mes-sages to people you already do business with.For existing customers, you should also under-stand, and possibly refer to, their prior activity.

Never use generic salutations, and always tryto relate content to the specific concerns of theperson you’re addressing. For example, procure-ment people will respond to messages about costsavings and control. Marketing specialists willfind response-rate improvement compelling.

To help with this approach, there are sever-al targeting tools and approaches available:

■■ Segmentation. Segmentation analyticsbreak down populations into groups so you canselect messages that resonate with each segment.

■■ Location intelligence. Geo informationsystems (GIS) let you relate recipient data to ge-ographic elements of the offer.

■■ Differentiated messaging. A variablecomposition tool lets you customize communi-cations templates to specific audiences.

■■ Differentiated multichannel delivery.This targeted approach helps you effectivelydeploy the full array of communication chan-nels, including SMS text messaging, bloglinks, podcasts, online networks and search, aswell as traditional media.

■■ Response evaluation. You must alwaysmonitor response and adjust communications ac-cordingly at the individual and segment levels.

B-to-c marketers have demonstrated thepower of the premium offering, but what’s ap-propriate to a b-to-b audience? Thought leader-ship pieces, like white papers, can provide valu-able information and build credibility. It’s alsovery effective to offer research studies promisingnew insights into your prospects’ key concerns.

Webinars can generate gold-plated leads,but it’s important to target your invitations. Youcan get help by partnering with an industry or-ganization or publication whose establishedscope automatically targets the audience youwant and that already has an engaged audience.

Paradoxically, a smaller target can actuallydeliver a bigger audience. Consider, for exam-ple, a webinar on customer communicationsmanagement. Sent to a broad array of businessexecutives, 20 to 30 people typically mightregister. But if the theme is made even narrow-er, to something like “Managing health carebenefits communications for health plan mem-

bers,” and offered to a small list of benefitsmanagers at large corporations and insurers,you may get more than 200 people to register.

Another best practice involves the seg-mented distribution of dimensional andnondimensional mailings. Separate your listinto high-potential and low-potentialprospects. Send the high potentials dimen-sional mailings via first-class mail or overnightexpediter to help ensure deliverability.

Low-potential prospects could receivenondimensional mailings, such as postcards, orit might be prudent to send them nothing at allwithin certain phases of a campaign. For thisgroup, assess your response rates, average costof sale and lifetime customer value.

The response rate for targeted, segmentedmailings can be significantly higher than formailings where there is no targeting or segmen-tation. While campaigns in print mean usinghigher cost-per-image digital printing, target-ing often means sending less content in total.That can mean a better recipient experienceand lower net production and delivery costs.

Greg Van den Heuvel is president, global strat-egy, product management & strategic market-ing, at Pitney Bowes Management Services(www.pbmanagementservices.com). He canbe reached at [email protected].

Variety of tools helps reach,retain key prospects


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guest column

By GREG VAN DEN HEUVELPresident, global strategy, product management & strategic marketing, Pitney BowesManagementServices

IFYOUhad 50 min-utes to poundyour b-to-b sales

and marketing VPswith questions—infront of your CEO—and without fear ofreprisal, what wouldyou ask them?

At Forrester’s re-cent Marketing Fo-rum, I was joinedby David Cooper-stein, Forrester’s VPand role manager-marketing leader-ship, and ForresterSenior AnalystScott Santucci to

simulate just such a gathering. We hadin our room about 100 senior market-ing professionals, about 10% of the fo-rum’s total audience, and asked themto pretend they were the board of amajor Global 2,000 corporation.

David, who runs Forrester’s mar-keting leadership research team,played CEO; Scott, who drives a lotof the thinking in our tech sales en-ablement research team, played VP-sales; and I, the research leader forForrester’s tech product marketingand management research team,played VP-marketing.

Wow! Even a simulation can bestimulating.

The session started steadily, withDavid asking Scott and me CEO-likequestions about how each of us wouldgenerate returns in the coming year.

Scott (in his sales role) offeredthat sales targeting was the key to re-turn on sales, finding ways to drivemore targeted, focused conversa-tions with customers that wouldlead to shorter-cycle, larger deals.

And I, posing as VP-marketing,suggested that marketing actuallycould scale faster than sales, as weimplemented adaptive approachesto integrating engagement acrosschannels, including social media.

David, our role-playing CEO,then pointed out the gorilla simu-

lacrum in the room: “So, how dosales targeting and adaptive, inte-grated marketing line up together?”

Of course, he knew the answer:leads.

That’s when the room explodedin a frenzy of comments and ques-tions. How can marketing take re-sponsibility for sales’ use of leads?What steps can marketing take toensure that salespeople accuratelyclose the loop on leads? What kindof lead-quality demands can sales ul-timately make on marketing?

Great questions, with each onehighlighting the interesting sociolog-ical drama playing out in b-to-b busi-nesses everywhere. They alsoprompted another question: Why dosales and marketing professionals

both turn into prepubescent siblingswhen talking lead management?

There are many reasons, but thebottom line is that lead managementis the thread that ties the differentoperational cycles of sales and mar-keting together. And that thread canget frayed.

Sales is responsible for revenueattainment. In most companies,that’s a “now,” “this quarter” and,sometimes, “yesterday” cycle.

Marketing is responsible forprofitable revenue growth. In mostcompanies, that’s a “pipeline,” “nextquarter” and (too often) “whenev-er” cycle.

One solution is for marketing’sand sales’ efforts to better administerlead management by defining a dis-tinction between marketing cus-

tomers and sales customers.A marketing customer is one in the

process of being developed as a lead.Marketing uses engagement mecha-nisms to nurture customers, provid-ing concrete value in return for addi-tional customer data, opportunity in-sights and commitments to enter intodeeper types of engagements.

A sales customer, by contrast, hasdeclared a need (perhaps at that exec-utive event) and is ready for a rev-enue discussion. Sales uses selling re-sources and techniques to do what-ever they need to do to secure deals.

To make this work, marketingneeds to alter a few things:

■Ensure that every marketing in-teraction can be regarded as a sourceof value by marketing customers.

■Implement real systems for eval-

uating likely returns on engagementsthroughout the nurturing process.

■ Stop throwing leads over thewall at sales, then complaining thatsales doesn’t close the loop onworthless interactions.

Like a good CEO, David madesure that his sales and marketingVPs didn’t end up in a publicwrestling match. But the lasting so-lution to effecting excellent jointstewardship over lead managementis to ensure that both marketing andsales stay focused on customers, notjust processes.

Peter Burris is principal analyst andresearch director at ForresterResearch (www.forrester.com). Hecan be reached [email protected].

B-TO-B AND B-TO-C marketers thinktheir markets are vastly differentand the ways they reach

customers and prospects couldn’t bemore dissimilar. And if they are, in fact,reaching out to their respective targetaudiences using widely different tactics,they’re doing it all wrong.

There are some techniques successful b-to-c marketers use that can betremendously profitable in b-to-b campaigns as well. For example, marketersmust develop programs that communicate to prospects one at a time throughhighly relevant content.

You can begin to improve relevancy by using some of the advancedsegmentation techniques. If you’re not already, begin to segment messagesbased on recipient actions. For example, you might send customers whoopened your e-mail and clicked through to download a white paper amessage for a related webinar. For those who opened your initial e-mail butdidn’t click, send a survey requesting more information about their interests soyou can improve relevancy going forward.

It’s also important that b-to-b marketers use a more multichannelapproach, much like their b-to-c peers. Savvy marketers recognize that sincecustomers and prospects are moving in and out of different communicationchannels throughout their day, taking an integrated multichannel approachsignificantly increases the chance of getting your message in front of them.

More marketers are integrating marketing messages across both social andtraditional channels. To do this successfully, you must involve customers andprospects in the process by inviting them to select channel preferences. Andleverage each of your channels to bring subscribers to other communicationsvehicles. Use your Facebook profile page to capture e-mail addresses or Tweetabout an exclusive SMS promotion. By reaching out across a variety of touch

points, you achieve maximum impact. While e-mail is the cornerstone of an engagement marketing campaign for

b-to-b marketers, in a Web 2.0 world, multichannel campaigns enable you toexpand your efforts in new and exciting ways. Whether it’s using Web analyt-ics, social media or an inbound marketing tool, digging into contact behaviorbeyond e-mail interactions allows you to improve your understanding ofprospects and adjust and optimize future initiatives.

Hooking Web analytics into your b-to-b marketing program can help youmonitor what prospects do on your site after they leave your e-mail. These ac-tions can give you valuable information regarding a prospect’s interests and lo-cation in the buying cycle that you can use to send targeted communications.And new technology also enables you to see what actions visitors took on yoursite before signing up for your e-mail program, webinar or field event. This formof Web tracking gives you a huge advantage because you can leverage this be-havior to identify a new subscriber with specific interests or characteristics andcan send highly relevant messages immediately following registration.

Given the challenging marketplace, b-to-b marketers need to employ everytool and tactic that might give them an edge. And that means taking a carefullook at all the techniques marketers are using with success and modifying andemploying them to your advantage. From dynamic content and Web analyticsto social media monitoring and multichannel messaging, to A/B testing andreal-time content, these tactics can help move you from listcentric prospectblasting to behaviorcentric campaigns that connect more strongly withprospects and move them through the buying cycle more effectively. By tak-ing steps to achieve extraordinarily relevant, personalized communications, b-to-b marketers can drive new levels of loyalty and revenue.

Scott Voigt is VP-marketing at online marketing solutions company Silverpop (www.silverpop.com). He can be reached [email protected].

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What’s a marketing customer vs.a sales customer?

By PETERBURRISPrincipalanalyst,researchdirector,ForresterResearch

By SCOTTVOIGT VP-marketing,Silverpop

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W HILE THERE are many waysto enhance brands, cus-tomer service and product

management using social media, thebenefits of social media for demandgeneration are often overlooked orunderutilized. This is unfortunatebecause, if used correctly, social me-dia can deliver a one-two punch, di-rectly impacting revenue and short-ening sales cycles.

Regardless of whether you arejust getting started in social media orif you have been using social mediafor years, these demand-generationstrategies must be a part of your ev-eryday marketing mix.

Let’s consider the following wayssocial media can help demand andlead generation.

1. Seed nurturing.This is the devel-opment of relationships, using socialmedia interactions, with very early-stage prospects before they enter yourdatabase as leads. It is a vital part of thesales process that consists of investingin and building relationships withprospects, regardless of whether or notyou have their contact information.

The key to making this successfulis having great content available with-

out requiring registration. You mayask, without any form for the prospectto fill out, how can I generate leads?The answer: You can expect theprospects to return for more contentlater and be more willing to share theirinformation with you when they do.

Just because you can’t identifythese individuals early on doesn’tmean they aren’t qualified leads.Nurture them in social media just asyou would the known contacts inyour database. If you don’t, more-savvy competitors will steal theseprospects from under your nose.

2. Lead nurturing. This is the act ofbuilding and maintaining relation-ships with known prospects as theyeducate themselves. When we thinkof lead nurturing we often think aboute-mail or sales calls, but lead nurturingcan be about social media, too.

You should use social media inter-

actions and conversations just as youwould online activity on your ownwebsite, to increase the relevance andtargeting of your marketing and salesefforts. To bolster your lead-nurturingmethods, you’ll want to focus in andbe specific. Use what you’ve learnedfrom listening to social media conver-sations to engage with prospects withgreater relevancy.

Next, segment and trigger yourcampaigns based on social interac-tions. Get a strong indication of buy-ing intent by combining knowledgeof social media interactions withtracking of other engagement activi-ties, such as e-mail click-throughs,downloads and Web page visits.

Now you’re ready to interact withprospects over multiple media chan-nels. Integrate social media channelswith traditional channels such as e-mail, direct mail and phone.

3. Opportunity nurturing. This isusing social media to support thesales cycle once the prospect engagesin a formal buying process with asales rep. To do this effectively re-quires agreement between market-ing and sales on what constitutes asales-ready lead, and on when and

how leads should get recycled backto marketing for further nurturing.Social media interactions can pro-vide deep insight into sales readi-ness and buyer intent, so they arecritical to keeping leads movingalong the lead life cycle.

There are a few key ways you canmake social media a deeper part ofyour sales and marketing alignmentobjectives. For example, you’ll wantto use social conversations to en-hance your lead scoring and to im-pact lead-handoff to sales. And ofcourse you’ll want to pay attentionto what your prospects are saying toeach other, and about their needs,and immediately notify sales repswhen prospects and customersshow increased activity or make in-teresting comments.

You’ll also want to have social me-dia activities play a key role in lead-re-cycling campaigns. Continually trackand monitor social media behaviorsand, when an uptick occurs, score alead higher and re-establish contact.

4. Customer nurturing. This finalapproach entails a deepening expan-sion of your relationships with exist-ing customers. These people are a

tremendous source of new and con-tinuing revenue, and should be con-tinuously nurtured just as much asnew leads.

Consider using social media toreaffirm customer purchases after thedecision is made. “Kill” customerswith kindness and validate their de-cision post-sale. Send additional in-formation, a helpful YouTube tutorialor simply reach out to answer ques-tions.

Establish rules of engagement tokeep drip campaigns highly targeted,timely and relevant. And don’t forgetto listen for new needs and require-ments, or even for the risk of defec-tion to your competitors.

The fact is, potential customersare engaging with your companylong before they touch you directly.By implementing lead-nurturingstrategies through social media youcan seed your lead-generation pro-cess from the earliest stages. You’llbuild a reputation as a trustedthought leader and develop highlyqualified prospects to contact oncethey are ready.

Maria Pergolino is director of market-ing at lead-management companyMarketo (www.marketo.com). She canbe reached at [email protected].


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guest columnSocial media tips for demand generation

BY KAREN J. BANNAN

T HE MAJORITY of e-mail dollars—70%—are spent on retentionefforts, according to a Forrester

Research forecast released last June,“U.S. Email Marketing Forecast, 2009to 2014.” Acquisition via e-mail, saidDavid Daniels, the firm’s VP andprincipal analyst, is much more diffi-cult in today’s business climate. Still,when done right, e-mail marketingcan become a strong tool for leadgeneration. The key, Daniels said, isto handle lead-generation e-mails asyou would in-person sales calls; itmight be the electronic equivalent ofa cold call, but there should be noth-ing cold about it.

You can warm your prospectingefforts by doing something youshould already be doing with yourretention e-mail marketing database:creating narrow segments wheneverpossible. This strategy, often called“microtargeting,” enables you toreach out to customers and bettermatch where they are in the buyingcycle, said Heather Blank, director ofstrategic services with e-mail serviceprovider (ESP) Responsys. “Ourclients who have been more success-ful [with lead generation] are theones creating dynamically generatedcontent by bringing in either Web orprofile data,” she said, “and sendingcontent that matches someone’s pro-file very closely.”

You can see this play out whenyou compare results of purchasing alist to renting space in a publisher’se-newsletter, said Matt Wise, presi-dent of online marketing servicesprovider Q Interactive. “If you’re atechnology marketer, for instance,and you’re reaching out to a listwhere someone has signed up to re-ceive an e-mail from CNET abouttechnology, you’re going to get bet-ter results than if you bought a listwhere you don’t know where thenames came from or how long it’sbeen sitting around,” he said.

Companies can also run into trou-ble committing one of the most obvi-ous mistakes—the hard sell—jump-ing right into an offer without creat-ing a relationship. But even thosemarketers willing to take it slow oftencommit marketing faux pas. Brandinconsistency, for example, can turnprospects off immediately, said JamieSchissler, strategy director of interac-tive agency Razorfish. “This still goeson where you’ve got multiple groupsresponsible for a brand,” he said. “If

you’re sending e-mails divorced fromthe core marketing team, the messageisn’t going to be on mark all of thetime.” If customers are aware of yourbrand but then receive a message thatseems very different than what theyalready know about it, they may be-come confused and look elsewhere,he said.

Marketers also miss out on an op-portunity when they don’t mentionhow they got the recipient’s e-mail,said Sara Ezrin, ESP Experian Chee-tahMail’s senior strategy consultant.Unless you’re buying a list, the peo-ple in your lead database have raisedtheir hands somehow—at an event,on your website or by clickingthrough on a banner ad. Mentioningthat source will help you get a betterstart on your relationship, she said.

“Unless you indicate the source ofthat e-mail acquisition and personal-ize it—’It was great to meet you at ourmost recent event’—you’re missingout on one of the most important, rel-evant pieces of messaging.” Ofcourse, Ezrin said, you have to be suresomeone on your team actually metthat person. If the address came fromsomeone dropping their card into abig fishbowl, you’ll need to couchyour greeting to reflect that, too.

It’s also important to tailor themessage to new recipients; theyshould get a completely differentsales message than someone who hasbeen doing business with your com-pany for years. However, e-mail mar-keters often lump new prospects intotheir more mature database, Ezrinsaid, sending newly opted-inprospects their regular stream of e-mails. “We’re always pushing fornurturing, but we’re not tailoring dif-ferent messaging based on relation-ship,” she said. “And sometimes weadd people to a new leads database,send them an introduction to thecompany—but they’ve been a cus-tomer for a while. They’re just buyinga new product. That’s exactly whatyou don’t want to do: Say ‘Welcome’to someone who is already acustomer.”

Segmenting doesn’t just stoponce you’ve got new prospects in asingle database and are using micro-targeting practices, said KaraTrivunovic, senior director of strate-gic services at StrongMail. “Consid-er classifying prospects even moreso you have two subgroups of leads:qualified leads and those people

likely seeking education,” she said.“Then you’re going to market tothem differently.”

Otherwise, messaging should asalways be highly focused on the

prospect’s business problem, andmarketers may best achieve that goalby using customer testimonials intheir e-mail copy, said Forrester Re-search’s Daniels. “Those people whoare doing this are getting the highestconversion rate,” he said.

StrongMail’s Trivunovic saidone of her customers—a human re-sources software vendor—created astrong “onboarding” program by in-troducing testimonials sequentially.The first e-mail or two had writtencommentary included, while subse-quent messages included links tovideo testimonials. “The videos wereso [that] people could see existingcustomers talk about how the organi-zation helped them. The companyfelt it humanized them. They weredoing more than marketing; they

were showing that they understoodtheir customers’ needs,” she said.

And if you do everything rightand your prospects haven’t opted outbut aren’t opening your e-mails?Don’t keep them in your prospectsdatabase. Instead, move them to aseparate list whether you intend onremarketing to them again or not. Un-opened e-mails are causing some mar-keters to have issues with e-mail de-liverability, said Q Interactive’s Wise,who also sits on the board of the In-teractive Advertising Bureau. “If yousend your e-mail out and no one en-gages with it, you’re risking that theISPs and corporations, which use ISPblack lists, are going to stop deliver-ing your messages,” he said.

Originally published Nov. 16, 2009

Creating e-mailsthat generate leadsList segmentation key to turning prospects into customers with spot-on messages

DDiiggggiinngg ddeeeeppeerr iinnttoo ee--mmaaiill ddaattaaMarketers looking to maximize their e-mail campaigneffectiveness need to push beyond simple metrics

BY KAREN J. BANNAN

MARKETERS TALK a lot about return on investment,but when it comes to e-mail marketing, manydon’t fully understand the very thing that can

help them determine it: metrics. Often, they either stickto simple metrics—such as opens and unique clicks—or they don’t use them at all.

“E-mail marketers need to not only measure e-mailengagement via metrics such as click-through rate butalso use that measure as a segmentation attribute to di-vide subscribers into two buckets: those that areengaged and those that are not,”said David Daniels, VP-principal analyst at Forrester Research. “This will allowmarketers to drive more meaningful and relevantconversations with their subscribers.”

Basic e-mail metrics are important but don’t measurethe complete impact of e-mail on the business, said LorenMcDonald, VP-industry relations at Silverpop, a providerof e-mail marketing services. “The fact is, if you make deci-sions based on e-mail metrics alone, they can be wrong.You could have a lower open rate but more conversionsbecause you engaged with fewer people but those peo-ple who did click through were more engaged.”

But once marketers start understanding what e-mailmetrics can do and how to couple them with other com-pany or industry data, the results can help shape a com-pany’s direction. Everything from research and develop-ment to sales to customer service can change for the bet-ter, experts said.

One of the most powerful ways a company can use e-mail metrics is to identify its best customers; another isto uncover potential new-product needs.

“One of the key metrics that our client Sony [Corp. ofAmerica] uses e-mail metrics for is value per registrant,”saidNicholas Einstein, director of strategic and analytic servicesat Datran Media, a digital marketing technology company.“We see a lot of companies doing this—leveraging e-maildata to make informed business decisions because it’s datathat can be generated quickly and reacted to quickly.”

Companies can, based on click-throughs, see wheninterest in a particular product is fading and merge thatinformation with sales data to provide a better picture offuture development. If sales are down but people arestill clicking through, they may be waiting for the nextversion or choosing a competitor’s offering instead.

E-mail can also be a tool to mitigate supply chain risk,said Yun-Hui Chong, VP-strategic services for ExperianCheetahMail, an e-mail service provider. “Companies canoffer discounts via e-mail for early product reservationsand then use those conversions to project out productsales,”she said. “The idea being that it can also showwhich products are going to be slow sellers.”

And then there’s the art of the upsell, said DanForootan, CEO of e-mail marketing solutions providerStreamSend. Click stream data can reveal when salespeo-

ple should follow up with a particular customer, he said.“If a client is clicking on five articles about a product theydon’t own, the interest is definitely there for somereason,”he said.

Still, none of these decisions should be made on theface value of e-mail analytics, he said. “You have to betracking analytics on the Web, too,” he said.

Marketers also should be careful about makingsweeping generalizations, such as lumping all customersand prospects into the same category. You may haveonly a small cross section of your prospect list subscribedto your e-mail newsletter, and those who do subscribemay be more or less savvy than the average customer orprospect. This means that if you base decisions only onthe metrics that you have in front of you, you may bemissing broader trends.

Those executives who aren’t comfortable letting e-mail metrics shape their R&D or sales efforts may bewilling to use them in the customer service realm.Marketers can track what people are clicking on as well aswhat types of in-bound e-mails they are seeing to helpshape online FAQs as well as help direct customer servicescripts, said Ben Rothfeld, global director for marketingstrategy at marketing services company Acxiom.

For example, if you combine e-mail metrics—such aswhich terms or subjects are most commonly clicked on ina newsletter—with Web analytics, you can create a flowchart of other issues or questions a customer may have.

Marketers can then use that information to helpreduce the number of calls coming in, McDonald said.

“We have one client that found it was getting a signifi-cant number of calls into the call center about really basicstuff,” he said. “The marketing team used e-mail to edu-cate those customers by creating an FAQ and using e-mail reminders. That marketing executive’s CEO loveshim because he is saving the company a lot of money. Ane-mail is 1/65 of the cost of a telephone call.”

But none of this is possible, said Ivan Chalif, director ofe-mail product marketing for Alterian, a provider ofintegrated marketing software, unless you’ve definedwhat you want to measure. E-mail metrics are the start, butthere’s much more out there, especially with platformsthat let you bridge e-mail, Web and database data, he said.

“If the marketing team is keen on driving and measur-ing the most revenue from their e-mail campaigns, track-ing opens and clicks is not going to mean much to themwhen they have to validate their efforts,” he said. “Youhave to have access to metrics that confirm or refute theeffectiveness of your program. If it’s revenue that’s impor-tant, it’s revenue you have to measure. Imagine going toyour VP of marketing’s office and she asks how much rev-enue a campaign generated and all you have are clicksand opens data. That’s not going to be a fun conversation.”

Originally published July 20, 2009

e-mail


BY KAREN J. BANNAN

A JANUARY REPORT by ExperianMarketing Services foundthat marketers that sent

e-mail to website visitors who hadabandoned shopping carts had 20times the transaction rates and rev-enue per e-mail compared withstandard bulk mailings. “The Re-marketing Report” also found thatthose same marketers saw doublethe open rates and quadruple theclick-through rates of most other e-mail campaigns. The lesson? Tar-get people when they are ready tobuy and they’re much more likelyto actually do so.

This is, of course, the strategybehind most life cycle marketingprograms. By targeting your e-mailmessages based on where the re-cipient is in the sales cycle, youshould see bigger lifts, more satis-fied customers and more retention

and repurchase over the long haul.Marketers know this, and it is

one stage that most seem to have agood take on, said Aaron Smith,principal with digital marketingservices company Smith-Harmon,a unit of online marketing firm Re-sponsys. “I think all b-to-b mar-keters have a solid hold on acquisi-tion,” he said.

However, as the length of thesales cycle grows and more peoplebecome involved in the buyingdecision—something common inb-to-b sales but an element that isbecoming even more so in thischallenging economy—marketersneed to fine-tune their efforts,Smith said, or risk exciting theend-user but losing the sale as therequest moves up the approvalladder.

This means marketers need tosegment lists carefully and, at least

Reach customersthroughout salescycle and beyond


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BEFORE USA Financial made bigchanges to its e-mail market-ing efforts, the company’s lead

management system was about as ef-fective as handing the sales team aphone book and telling them tomake some good calls, said RaeanneThompson, VP-marketing servicesat the Grand Rapids, Mich.-basedprovider of marketing solutions forfinancial advisers.

“We couldn’t tell anything aboutwho we were calling for follow-upbecause we had huge stacks of namesand no idea how interested theywere in our products,” said Thomp-son, who was a member of the salesteam three years ago and remembersfirsthand how challenging it was towork with the leads they were given.

The company also wasn’t testingits e-mail campaigns before sendingthem, she said.

In an effort to improve the e-mailcomponent of its marketing pro-gram, USA Financial hired e-mailmarketing services provider Silver-pop to establish a mechanism fortesting e-mail campaigns and to setup a sophisticated lead management

system, which it implemented in thethird quarter of 2008.

Now, instead of using a “batchand blast” approach, the companytests a sample of its financial-adviserclients before sending out a mass e-mail and will tweak the message ifnecessary, Thompson said.

As a result, unsubscribe ratesdropped from 25% in 2008 to an av-erage of 5% or less in 2009, depend-ing on the campaign, she said.

The lead management programscores USA Financial’s prospects bygetting those who open e-mail mes-sages to fill out a Web form that asksa few critical questions before mov-ing them on to the video or podcastthat’s attached to the e-mail, Thomp-son said. Based on the responses, in-dividuals are given a score; anyoneabove 190, for example, is consid-ered an “A” lead. Names in that cate-gory are assigned top priority andsent directly to the sales team for animmediate follow-up call, she said.

“Our sales team will call withspecific advice about how we canhelp their business,” Thompsonsaid. Because of its lead scoring pro-cess, USA Financial knows that

roughly 17% of all leads generatedin a year’s worth of marketing cam-paigns will be considered qualified,or “A” leads, she added.

Someone who scores in the “B”category is in the middle groundand will get follow-up informationat various intervals. A respondentplaced in the “C” group might in-clude someone who isn’t interestedin being called anytime soon and issent even less frequent follow-up e-mails.

Since making the changes to its e-mail program, USA Financial hasseen significant improvements in itsconversion rates.The conversion rateof qualified leads to sales in 2009 roseto 40% from about 20% in 2008.

Plus, the marketing and salesteams have a more positive relation-ship than they had in prior years,Thompson said. “Sales always wantsmore information because it makesthem more prepared for the nextphone call,” she said. “Now we’reworking together instead of buttingheads like we used to in the past.”

Originally published April 8, 2010, onbtobonline.com

in the beginning, feel out prospectsto see what “bucket” they fall into,said Mike Hotz, a senior strategicconsultant with Responsys. “Mysuggestion is to use a progressive pro-filing program. Ask questions one ata time with each e-mail touch. Han-dle the nurture program as youwould a sales call,” he said. “Don’t as-sume too much, and let the customerset the tone and the pace.”

This might mean inserting a pollinto the message or providing multi-ple links—for example, “Click hereif you’re a small-businessperson” or“Click here if you’re a midsize com-pany.”

Either way, customers andprospects in the consideration phaseneed more nurturing, and marketersmust monitor metrics so their mes-saging can be quickly changedshould those recipients’ actionschange, said Morgan Stewart, direc-tor of research and strategy for Ex-actTarget, a provider of e-mail mar-keting solutions.

“During the consideration stage,companies do well by focusing ontwo complementary goals,” he said.“First, they deliver content thathelps establish themselves as the ex-pert on the topic of interest. Second,they educate the consumer on theproducts or services the consumerinquired about.”

The type of content can varygreatly. It’s no longer enough to pro-vide a simple, educational e-mailnewsletter. Prospects in the informa-tion-gathering stage need more thanjust straight text, said Jim Wehmann,senior VP-global marketing for onlinemarketing firm Digital River, whosuggested surveys, links to white pa-pers, case studies and customer testi-monials. News articles, blog posts, so-cial media fodder and third-party ma-terials from analysts, news organiza-tions or industry watchers are alsooptions.

Q&As with salespeople can be es-pecially useful for dispelling mis-conceptions and explaining howproducts differ from others on themarket, said Chad White, researchdirector with Smith-Harmon, as canfree trials and offers of live demon-strations, when applicable.

Once the customer pays for atransaction, the first thing theyshould receive is a thank you, saidLisa Arthur, CMO of enterprise mar-keting management company Apri-mo. After that, marketers shouldhelp that customer get the most outof the purchase so he or she feels thatthey got a great deal. “A week later,you want to send something saying:‘We know you purchased. Here arethe benefits and how-tos so you cantake full advantage of what you’vegot,’ “ she said.

Case studies are a good option,she said, because they can showhow other purchasers are findingsuccess. “You need to give themsome confidence that the companythey have bought from cares about

them,” she said.Retention e-mails can help keep

customers on board, but they canalso help up- and cross-sell otherproducts or services, squeezing newrevenue out of old customers. Itshould go without saying that cus-tomers should receive e-mails wellbefore licenses are set to expire or anew product update is slated for in-troduction; however, many compa-nies forget that current customerscan also become their best salespeo-ple, said George DiGuido, VP-e-mailmarketing at interactive marketing

agency Zeta Interactive. “Oncesomeone ‘transacts’ with you, youstill need to keep consistency in themessaging and keep that dialoguegoing. Marketers spend so muchmoney on acquisition, but thenthey miss out on other opportuni-ties,” he said.

Retention e-mails should also con-tain information to help recipientsquantify your product’s value, saidJanine Popick, CEO and a co-founderof VerticalResponse. “You want tohelp them increase the ROI—[by of-fering] ideas, information, tips and

‘How can I help yous?’ “ she said.“You’re not doing a hard sell; it’smore, ‘Did you know?’ “

Lapsed customers can also bene-fit from life cycle marketing, al-though these messages should behandled with care, said Digital Riv-er’s Wehmann. “You have to bemuch less aggressive because, as fre-quency and sell goes up, complaintsdo, too,” he said. “Messages shouldbe, ‘Haven’t heard from you in awhile’ or ‘Confirm that we’ve got theright information.’ You have to makesure the customer is still working at

the company and if your product isstill something that works for them.”

This is a good place for surveys aswell as short messages explainingnew product features or updates, hesaid. Win-back offers of discounts orspecial deals can also work, but abetter option is never letting a cus-tomer become lapsed to begin with,said Smith-Harmon’s White. “Ifyou’re doing life cycle marketingright, you never get to that point,”he said.

Originally published Jan. 18, 2010

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W HEN TRANSMOTION Medical worked up a newcampaign last year to reach potential buyersof its specialty medical-procedure chairs, it

needed the most precise prospect list possible. Afterall, its target universe of physicians and nurses was ex-tremely limited, and the company wanted to make ev-ery name count.

TransMotion avoided the typical segmented sub-scriber or association membership lists and instead re-lied on expensive, highly verified custom lists fromhigh-end database suppliers.

“It goes without saying that your best re-sults will come from people who have shownlegitimate interest, perhaps by visiting yourWeb site or filling out Web-to-lead forms,”said Sam Weber, VP-enterprise sales andclient services with Genius.com, TransMo-tion’s marketing automation supplier, whichhelped develop the lists. “That being said,we’ve found that certain database suppliersthat are more expensive also feature a highly targetedprocess. If you can get three good connects out of 50,you might want to spend $10,000 to do that.”

Weber recommended that TransMotion build a ro-bust database of high-quality prospects using list-building services from Jigsaw, NetProspex and Reach-Force, integrating new names with an existing in-house Salesforce.com list.

Jigsaw has built up a b-to-b database largely byswapping its own names in exchange for new ones.NetProspex and ReachForce offer increasingly sophis-ticated, custom services designed to find highly tar-geted contacts.

This kind of high-octane list-building isn’t for ev-ery company or campaign. The cost-per-contact maybe 10 times or more than that of merely renting a sub-scriber list. Weber said a list built using ReachForce,with its intense level of telephone prospect verifica-tion, might run up to $25 per contact.

“When we started five years ago, our goal was to bethe ‘anti-list list company,’ “ said Cody Young, VP-cus-tomer success at ReachForce. “The bane of profession-al marketers’ existence is the 1% to 2% response rateto outbound marketing campaigns that has alwaysbeen considered successful. We set about to reverse-engineer the challenge.”

Like other database companies, ReachForce worksto verify the basics, such as first and last name, e-mailaddress, phone, physical address and so forth, usingwhat it calls its “data factory.” It then uses call centersto find key contacts who, regardless of title, would bea likely buyer for a client’s product.

Functioning as a research company, ReachForceoften sends out surveys to further verify buyingroles and practices. The resulting list is owned byReachForce customers, not rented, and can be usedmultiple times.

“Inside every company is a person with a sore spot,

a pain,” Young said. “But you can’t find him based ontitle alone. Nine out of 10 marketers use the title-basedapproach, which means they’re just guessing.”

Despite the comparatively high cost, smaller compa-nies without their own in-house list-cleaning resourcesmay find hyper-precise list builders worthwhile.

To invite prospects to its webinars on best practicesin e-mail marketing campaigns, b-to-b e-mail serviceprovider Pinpointe uses high-quality list-builder Net-Prospex. “We’ve found that the cost-per-customer-ac-quisition is probably below half what it has beenthrough the traditional method of just building a listthrough Web site registration and search,” PinpointeChief Evangelist Craig Stouffer said.

Like Jigsaw, NetProspex assembles its basicdatabase by offering free access to its list in exchangefor a user’s own contacts. It then uses its own product,called CleanStep, to winnow millions of names into asmaller, highly verified list that is further checked byoverseas call centers.

NetProspex’s cost is a flat rate of 75 cents per con-tact. That compares with a typical price of about 10cents to 20 cents per contact to rent a subscriber listfrom a traditional list-management company.

Originally published March 8, 2010

Paying list price Eschewing traditional list building, firms thatinvest more upfront find it worth time, cost


directFFiinnddiinngg nneeww wwaayyss ttoo mmaaxxiimmiizzee yyoouurr lliissttJON VANZILE

ASK THREE EXPERTS HOW many times you can e-mail to the same list andyou’re likely to get three answers.

“The tricky thing about an acquired list is that it’s basically a one-shot deal,” said Anthony Schneider, president of Mass Transmit in NewYork. “You get one chance at a new user’s inbox, so your deliverability,relevance, content, benefit—everything—has to be really good.”

Not so fast, said Tom Blue, CEO and founder of Lead411 in Los Angeles.“We recommend three times for a list,” he said. “You never know what’s go-ing to happen. Your e-mail might get stuck in spam; it might get deleted.So we recommend you e-mail at different times of day on different days.”

Mark Reyna, managing partner of Rainmaker Partners in Lowell,Mass., goes one step further: “We’ve done some campaigns for largecorporations with millions of names on the list where we hit the listweekly for years, and we were still getting a good conversion rate.”

The variety of answers from three experts exposes an important truthwhen it comes to direct marketing: Hard and fast rules are hard to come by.In fact, the number of times you can mail to any particular list depends on anumber of factors, including the scope of the campaign, the quality of thelist, the nature of the deliverable and even the nature of your product.

“In a campaign that’s narrowly focused on CFOs of midsize softwarecompanies, for example, the best approach might be a newsletterwhere you position yourself as an expert,” Reyna said. “Assuming youhave good content, you can send it every couple of weeks.”

This approach, however, is among the most expensive in e-mail mar-keting, as a flow of relevant, high-quality content is difficult to maintainand requires an editorial team.

“It’s all about ROI,” Schneider said. “There can be a good reason to doan initial e-mail, then follow up with a special offer or other mechanism.However, each pass is costly. But if the ROI supports it, I could definitelysee going back to a good list with a targeted follow-up.”

One way to measure a good list is to watch the opt-outs and, if possi-ble, the conversion rates of leads to sales. If the opt-out rate starts to rise,or the conversion rate drops, then the list may be degraded.

Blue pointed out another long-term benefit to marketing to thesame list repeatedly, provided these rates hold steady: namerecognition. Many b-to-b sales are for relatively large-ticket items, so it’sunlikely a CFO will convert to a sale worth tens of thousands of dollarsafter a single e-mail. Instead, a sustained campaign of high-quality con-tent will raise your brand awareness in the marketplace.

“You have to get your name out there,” Blue said. “If they see yourname on an e-mail and, a month later, they’re looking to buy, there’s abetter chance they’ll remember your company.”

This means the frequency of mailings somewhat depends on the priceof the product, Reyna said. “A lot of it comes down to selling price,” he said.“As the price scales higher, you need to take a more intellectual approach.People don’t buy a $100,000 software application every month but, if youdo things well, when it’s budget time next year, you’ll be on the short list.”

Originally published March 29, 2010, on btobonline.com

“Inside every company isa person with a sore spot,a pain,but you can’t findhim based on title alone.”Cody Young, VP-customer success, ReachForce

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BY JON VANZILE

C HRIS CONNOLLY, president ofConnolly Financial Services inQuincy, Mass., has tried

e-mail marketing to reach his small-business clients. He tried mailers,too, but none of it worked.

“If you’re in my business andyou’re not cold-calling, you’re not inthis business,” Connolly said. Con-nolly sells multiple financial prod-ucts to small and midsize businesses,including benefits packages, healthcare, retirement packages and mon-ey-management services.

Despite the rise of inexpensive e-mail marketing, telemarketing re-mains important for many market-ing campaigns—and according toJoe Krisky, president of database

marketing company Massini Groupin Hillsboro, Ore., it’s more flexibleand efficient than ever before.

Krisky said this turn back to tele-marketing is driven by several factors,including a softening economy thatmakes lead generation more impor-tant than ever before and increasinglysophisticated telemarketing cam-paigns that combine the phone and e-mail with highly targeted call lists.

“Large businesses are determin-ing they can use telemarketing toreach small-to-medium businesses,”Krisky said. “Instead of pursuing thehuge sale, they are pursuing largernumbers of small-to-medium busi-nesses, each of which will contributea smaller piece to the top line.”

Connolly said he uses industry-

specific databases to sort his prospec-tive targets by 401k type andprovider, then generates call listsbased on the age of the benefit pro-gram. Operators of older programs,he said, are often unaware how muchthey could save by switching to anewer retirement program. Al-though he hired out the calling, hehelps write the scripts himself.

This kind of narrow targeting isvital, Krisky said, because the b-to-bworld is much more limited than theconsumer telemarketing world.

“You’re limited by how manycompanies you can sell to,” Kriskysaid. “You can’t just go faster andfaster. You’ve got to be intelligent inhow you approach your targets.”

For many marketers, this means

blending e-mail and online market-ing efforts with telemarketing cam-paigns. Maureen Feeley-Woods,president of telemarketing companyA Better Call in Reading, Mass., pro-vides the calling manpower for Con-nolly’s campaigns. When her team ofdialers makes a connection, they arealways prepared to send an e-mail tocurious prospects that includes linksto Connolly’s online presence and in-formation about his services.

“When they ask for information,I think they’re saying, ‘Prove to meyou’re real,’” Feeley-Woods said.“About 50% of the prospects wantinformation fast.”

The Massini Group goes one stepfurther. The company’s agents areable to send “high-level” e-mails that

are tied back to the call center. Agentsare able to see immediately whichlinks the prospect has opened, as wellas open and click-through rates.

“If they aren’t close enough topurchasing to put them in the fun-nel, we ask if we can send them in-formation periodically in an e-mailnewsletter,” Krisky said.

According to an internal MassiniGroup case study, a flexible e-mailcomponent adds as much as a 15%benefit to each telemarketing cam-paign.

“E-mail allows people to read theinformation,” Krisky said. “It opensup two channels of delivery.”

Originally published March 5, 2010on btobonline.com

Telemarketing can still ring up sales


Company Location URL Phone Key executive Product/description

CallSource WestlakeVillage, Calif.

www.callsource.com (888) 489-2574 Geoffrey Infeld, VP-business developmentand performancemanagement

Results: Modular integrated marketing, sales, training and management system that analyzes advertisingperformance, appointment setting and sales conversion; advertising and sale performances are roll-trackedmonthly to spot underperforming media as well as sales constraints; includes e-learning platform to addressindividual employee training needs

IBM Corp. Armonk,N.Y.

www.ibm.com/us (800) 426-4968 Rob Ashe, generalmanager, businessanalytics

IBM Real-Time Analytics Matching Platform (RAMP): Leverages patented call routing processes and predictedavailability algorithms to successfully match callers to customers service representatives by enhancing call centermetrics (average handling time, customer satisfaction and service level adherence), minimizing CSR turnover andcreating new performance paths for CSRs

Infor Alpharetta,Ga.

www.infor.com (678) 319-8000 Tony Compton,director, productmarketing, CRM

Infor CRM Epiphany: Delivers inbound and outbound marketing capabilities that streamline the campaignprocess and create real-time customer profiles that can be analyzed to identify high-impact offers at the momentof customer interaction

MicroStrategyInc.

McLean, Va. www.microstrategy.com

(703) 848-8600 Eduardo Sanchez, execVP-strategicdevelopment

MicroStrategy 9 Release 2: Enables companies to convert volumes of data to provide meaningful insights;supports a full line of business intelligence applications from a single, integrated platform

Oracle RedwoodShores, Calif.

www.oracle.com (800) 633-0738 John O'Rourke, VP-product marketing,EPM system andbusiness intelligence

Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation: Provides business intelligence and analytic capabilities based onproducts for OLAP system, interactive dashboards, ad hoc analysis, proactive detection and alerts, advancedreporting and publishing, and mobile analytics; Oracle Business Intelligence Applications: Intuitive, role-basedintelligence; Oracle's Enterprise Performance Management System: Oracle's Hyperion PerformanceManagement Applications are a modular suite of integrated applications that support an array of strategic andfinancial performance management processes

SAP BusinessObjects

NewtownSquare, Pa.

www.sap.com/solutions/sapbusinessobjects

(610) 661-1000 Franz Aman, VP-business intelligenceplatform productmarketing

BusinessObjects Text Analysis: Reads text in 30-plus languages, extracts information so unstructured text datacan be used as a data source for integration or business intelligence; BusinessObjects Intelligent Search:Searches multiple sources from a single, secure search box; results are reranked for relevance and clustered bypeople, company and other concepts; BusinessObjects VizServer: Explores relationships and networks(StarTree), trends (TableLens) and timelines (TimeWall)

SAS Cary, N.C. www.sas.com (800) 727-0025 Mary Crissey, globalmarketing manager

SAS Enterprise Miner: Streamlines data mining to create predictive and descriptive models based on dataanalysis; SAS Forecast Server: Generates forecasts; SAS/OR: Optimization, project scheduling and simulationtechniques

SPSS Inc. Chicago www.spss.com (312) 651-3000 Jason Verlen, chiefproduct strategist

PASW Data Collection: Captures people's attitudes, opinions and preferences, and incorporates feedback intobusiness processes; PASW Statistics: Advanced statistical software suite designed to solve business and researchproblems; PASW Modeler: Enterprise data-mining workbench to develop predictive models and deploy theminto business operations

Teradata Corp. Miamisburg,Ohio

www.teradata.com (937) 242-4786 Randy Lea, VP-products servicesmarketing

Data Warehouse/database systems: Analytical databases used for business intelligence; Marketing andcustomer management software: Customer relationship desktop software portfolio for analyzing customers andcommunicating; Master Data Management: Software used for managing, defining and analyzing data

Theorem Inc. Chatham,N.J.

www.theoreminc.net (973) 665-1700 Ardavan Amini,director-customresearch

Theorem Analytics: Combines all data sets from online advertising, rich media campaigns, search campaigns andmedia planning information into one central repository. It allows advanced reporting on ad server log files andsearch campaigns, prebuilt statistical models and algorithms for online campaigns, automated generation ofreports and marketing dashboards, customizable private labeled interface, and custom graphs and multi-dimensional report creation in HTML, Excel and PDF formats

VeraCentra Napa, Calif. www.veracentra.com (707) 224-6161 Alex Peake, VP-technology solutions

VeraCentra Intelligence: Collects, centralizes and organizes data of any format (internal or external, spreadsheetsto legacy systems, POS to Web analytics). Dashboard tools like targeting, segmentation and modeling provide real-time access; VeraCentra Complete: Cross-channel marketing platform providing personalization, automatedoffer and centralized asset management, segmentation and list management

Xert Communi-cations Corp.

Alexandria,Va.

www.xert.com (703) 838-9847 Dave Battaglini, CEO Xert Precision Suite: Campaign management and analytics tools to collect and organize contacts, executetargeted e-mail marketing and events marketing, and optimize online results

direct

Analytics vendors at a glance


ATLAS COPCO CONSTRUCTION Min-ing Technique USA designs,manufactures and markets a

variety of construction and miningequipment, including drilling rigsfor water and oil and gas wells. Thecompany also often takes usedequipment in trade when sellingnew rigs, and so has a selection of re-furbished equipment on its hands.

The U.S. wing of a Sweden-basedmultinational, Atlas Copco had fo-cused on traditional forms of mar-keting its products, the cost ofwhich can range up to $1 millionnew. These channels include printadvertising in trade publications, itsown custom publications and tradeshows. But the company had noready way to market its pre-ownedequipment, which might be pricedat several hundred thousand dollars.

Commerce City, Colo.-based AtlasCopco relied on marketing agency90octane, Denver, to help develop apaid search and landing page strate-gy in support of its used water welldrilling equipment.

“When they first came to us, in2008, the economy was turningdownwards,” said Paul Vangura, pro-ject manager with 90octane. “Theysaid to us, ‘We have to push our usedequipment more toward those peoplenot willing to spend as much money.’ “

Because of the immense price tagsfor even the used products, 90octanedeveloped a new destination—www.atlascopcomarketplace.com—conceived not as an e-commerce sitebut rather as an Auto Trader-style re-source, where viewers could browsefor products in specific locales.

Also, a client-side managementsystem was developed where, aspieces of used equipment becameavailable, Atlas Copco could upload itsproducts and information sheets, andbuild the inventory list continuously.

Only such information as brand,year of manufacture, model and lo-cation are listed on the microsite.

“If they want to know moreabout the details of a particular pieceof equipment, they have to registerto receive a spec sheet,” Vangurasaid. The resulting information issubmitted to sales and also flowsinto a database of prospects.

The site also features a geo-loca-tor, which indicates which AtlasCopco dealers throughout the coun-try currently have used drilling rigsavailable for inspection.

Keyword groups were divided intothree main areas, which helped quali-fy visitors: general phrases such as“water well drills,” indicating an earlystage of review; branded phrases, suchas “Atlas Copco” itself, or “IngersollRand,” a well-known brand whosedrilling business was acquired by At-las Copco in 2004; and terms indicat-ing a readiness to buy, such as “waterwell drills for sale.”

Only about 80 to 100 keywordswere employed, appropriate for anuncrowded, niche space.

“Depending on the search termsthey employed, visitors would betaken to different landing pages,”

said Joanna Canton, Atlas Copcomarketing communications director.Some keywords directed visitors toproduct home pages, she said, whileother phrases might direct themdeeper into the site, perhaps toviewing drilling accessories.

The company geo-targets itssearch ads (based on those locationswhere it has dealers) and dayparts theappearance of ads across the countryin normal business hours. Canton said

all viewers are allowed to look at a fewpages at first but are asked to registerfor an e-newsletter to see more.

Up- and cross-selling aren’t ig-nored. Atlas Copco continues tocommunicate via e-mail blasts to itsregistrants once a month, with up-dated offers about accessories—forexample, a two-for-the-price-of-oneoffer on new drill hammers and bits.

Originally published Feb. 8, 2010

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HOW ATLAS COPCO USED SEARCH TO MARKET PRE-OWNED WATER WELL DRILLSObjective: To create a market for used water well drilling rigsStrategy: Paid search ads driving viewers to a microsite site to reviewavailable equipmentResults: 311 new leads in 18 months, with the lowest cost-per-lead ofany of the company’s marketing channels

Case

Stu

dy


PERHAPS NO MARKETING channelhas gotten as much attentionrecently as social media. While

it dominates conversations, the topictends to focus on the channel’s cus-tomer intelligence role and how itcan help discern voice of the cus-tomer, gain market intelligence andmanage product complaints.

Seldom does the discussion focuson how social media can serve as a de-mand- or lead-generation tool. Andwhen it does, reviews are mixed.

“I’m not seeing a connection be-tween social media and lead genera-tion today,” said Laura Ramos, VP-principal analyst at Forrester Re-search. “Social activity like Twitter,LinkedIn, YouTube and various so-cial-syndication methods drive trafficand awareness, but there is much ad-ditional effort required to determineif that traffic translates to opportuni-ty. I think the opportunity for socialin b-to-b is in building a community,starting with your best customers.”

Others find the prospects of so-cial marketing as a potent prospect-ing tool more compelling, perhapsverging on becoming another directmarketing channel.

“Direct marketing has alwaysbeen about trying to move the cus-tomer toward an offer, or product in-formation, or a webinar or some oth-er piece of content that will helpdrive them to a salesperson,” saidKevin Kerner, managing director-U.S. at b-to-b agency Mason Zimbler,a division of direct marketing com-pany Harte-Hanks.

“What social gives us is this othertool to be able to communicate withpeople in a safe environment thatpeople trust to get them into the fun-nel,” Kerner said.

MARKETING OWNERSHIPWhether it does this or not, social

media has landed squarely in mar-keting’s lap. According to the “2009Business Social Media Benchmark-ing Study,” conducted by online di-rectory Business.com, 66% of re-spondents said their companies’marketing departments are the maindrivers of social media initiatives.Only 23% of respondents said cus-tomer support was the owner of cor-porate social initiatives.

Significantly, the Business.comstudy—conducted online in Augustand September and based on 2,948responses—revealed that marketersappreciate social marketing for itstop-line contributions. Among themost popular metrics for gaugingthe success of social media programswere engagement with prospects,revenue generation and prospect

lead volume and quality.“Interestingly, it’s the smaller

businesses that are seeing the mostimpact of social media activities onrevenue and lead generation,” saidthe study’s author, Ben Hanna, VP-marketing at R.H. Donnelley Inter-active, parent of Business.com. “Thereason may be that one new cus-tomer gained this way may be a sig-nificant contributor to revenue. Orpossibly, small-business ownersdon’t have as many interactions totrack, and thus aren’t losing thesource of new customers.”

By contrast, Hanna said, largercompanies now are getting involvedin social marketing “on faith.”

An anomaly of the Business.comstudy was that it lumped social mediain with such activities as webinars,podcasts and business-related RSSfeeds, where engagement and lead-qualification are more easily tracked.

But Hanna said that the more“purely” social media channels—so-cial media sites, portal forums, socialbookmarking sites and blogging (in-cluding microblog Twitter)—can alsofunction strongly as demand- and

lead-generation channels, even to thepoint of helping build databases ofprospects.

“When people have their personalhats on, they’re not that excited aboutgiving up their contact information,”he said. “But once we put that busi-ness hat on, most of us are used to thenotion that to get what we want, weneed to provide contact informationon ourselves and our companies.”

SOCIAL CITIZENSHIPA company that is finding a

strong correlation between its socialoutreach and business goals is FedExCorp. Its Citizenship Blog, introducedlast year, promulgates the company’sinvolvement in such areas as commu-nity and disaster relief, environmen-tal issues and work-life balance.

“We’re finding that when FedExcalls on prospective and current cus-tomers, they’re looking at the type ofcompany they’re doing businesswith,” said Matt Ceniceros, FedEx’sCitizenship Blog editor. “We feel thisis a very powerful medium to get outour stories.”

FedEx also leverages social me-dia as an advertiser. It is a sponsor

of the American Express OPEN Fo-rum, an online networking centerand information exchange forsmall-business owners. And thecompany’s tongue-in-cheek videospoking fun at corporate Americahave gone viral on YouTube; its“Office Meeting” spot alone hasgotten almost 500,000 views.

But primarily, Ceniceros said, so-cial media has given FedEx a “morehuman” channel to convey news.

For example, earlier this yearwhen the company began laying offwhat eventually totaled about 2,500employees in response to the reces-sion, Chairman Frederick Smith ex-plained the company’s situation in avideo.

The positive feedback from thatprompted FedEx CMO Mike Glennto use the Citizenship Blog to discussthe company’s 20% advertising cut-backs, including pulling its advertis-ing from the Super Bowl for the firsttime in 12 years.

“It was presented in a human andsomewhat vulnerable way,” Cenicerossaid.

One result: In December, FedExwas named by Glassdoor.com, a jobsWeb site, one of the best places towork in the U.S. in 2009, compiledfrom company employee reviewsthroughout the year. FedEx in-creased its ranking to No. 21, fromNo. 49 the previous year, with em-ployees reporting that it handleddownsizing well.

Can this speak to social media’s

impact on revenue and lead-gen?Ruth P. Stevens, a b-to-b marketingconsultant and Columbia BusinessSchool professor, doesn’t think so, atleast not yet.

“To me, social media still doesn’tfeel scalable,” Stevens said. “I hearwonderful anecdotal stories abouthow customers had a bad experiencewith a product, for example, and thecompany has five people spendinghours solving the problem. But that’snot the kind of marketing that helpsdeliver gains in revenue.”

Admitting that business dealscan be identified via Twitter or othersocial media postings, Stevens nev-ertheless draws a distinction be-tween business development andmarketing.

“Business development is onesie-twosies,” Stevens said. “It’s saleswithout a quota, not marketing.”

For FedEx’s Ceniceros, however,social marketing’s performance as ameasurable, tracking marketing chan-nel may eventually become apparent.

“If you look at social media as achannel instead of a new frontier, itbecomes more tangible,” Cenicerossaid. “From a media relationshipstandpoint, the way we talk to printisn’t the same way we talk to broad-cast, for example. As the businessworld becomes more sophisticatedin using social media, its special wayof being addressed will becomemore sophisticated as well.”

Originally published Feb. 8, 2010case study

Socially challengedB-to-b companies seek new ways to push social marketing beyondcustomer intelligence to demand generation and sales



AMID TODAY’S RELENTLESS buzz about digital mar-keting, it’s a little eye-opening when a com-pany puts some dollars and faith behind a

direct mail campaign supported by outboundphone calls. That’s exactly what Affinity InsuranceServices undertook this summer, with a targetedprogram aimed at inspiring face-to-face meetingsbetween prospects and inside salespeople.

“A great portion of our work is direct marketingand direct mail, but there’s also a lot of synergy indriving customers to the Web, the telephone or asales agent,” said Ken Devlin, VP-life and health mar-keting for Affinity Insurance, based in Hatboro, Pa.,near Philadelphia. “It’s not just relying on a single legof the marketing stool to make things happen.”

Affinity Insurance markets its life and healthcoverage products to professional associations aswell as affinity groups of aggregated professionals,which offer a portfolio of insurance products totheir members. The company targets groups thatcurrently don’t offer insurance products to mem-bers, as well as those that do but could be encour-aged to switch to Affinity.

Devlin said that high-end prospects are usedto receiving direct mail offers, so he’s had good re-sults with the channel. However, sales recently hadreported that its prospect list of about 2,000 nameswasn’t returning decent leads.

“Sales was mailing everybody but was discour-aged in not getting good, solid leads,” Devlin said.He added that many of the prospect organizationsthat did respond were smaller ones not consideredtier one candidates.

For help, he turned to Goodman MarketingPartners, San Rafael, Calif., a direct agency with atrack record of conducting direct-mail campaigns.

First, Affinity and Goodman divided up the en-

tire universe of prospects into more potent tierone segments, those groups that were sufficientlylarge for Affinity and also that consisted of high-income members.

One segment was made up of 200 associationswith no current insurance offerings; the other, 200groups that had insurance plans for members butwere potential “switchers.”

Then they considered the form the campaignshould take.

“[Affinity] only budgeted $20,000, which is a verytiny campaign,” said Denise Williams, director ofstrategic marketing in Goodman’s Philadelphia of-fice. “But I asked myself: For new-business develop-ment, how do you get people to meet with you?”

Williams’ solution was to create an invitation toeach contact to meet personally for a chat over acup of coffee with a key sales executive. Enclosedwith the invitation would be a $5 gift card fromStarbucks Coffee Co.

“It’s true. The best things in life are free,”proclaimed the gift card holder, proffering the offeras a way to “relax while discovering how to get themost out of a group insurance portfolio.”

“Back in the 1970s and 1980s, I rememberresearch studies suggesting the value of sendingpeople a $1 bill,” Williams said. “Why? To makethem feel a little guilty. With this campaign, weloaded the cards up with $5, which is nice for a cou-ple of cups of coffee.

“But this was really just to start the dialogue,”Williams said. “The buy cycle for b-to-b begins withthe first connect, so they might consider you at alater date.”

Cover letters were tailored to each of the two tar-get groups—one stressing the value of offering addi-tional member benefits, the other urging a re-evalua-tion of current insurance providers. Also included was

an overview brochure highlighting Affinity’s exper-tise. Prominently displayed on the outside of themailer was the message, “A special invitation for pro-fessional associations—like yours. Free gift enclosed!”

To help ensure that the envelopes were notthrown away, Affinity and Goodman employedBoxpilot, a company that specializes in “guidedvoice mail.” On the day before each of four maildrops, Boxpilot delivered prerecorded phone mes-sages to the next day’s recipients, alerting them tothe pending arrival of a high-value package.

“Now, the recipient has a heads-up that the offeris coming the next day,” Williams said. She said theprocess also helped clean the list if the intended re-cipient’s phone was answered by someone else.

Mail drops took place on June 2, June 16, July 24and Aug. 7 of last year. In addition to pre-dropguided voice mails, Affinity’s inside sales executivesplaced personal follow-up calls to each contact.

The results have been encouraging for Affinity.Devlin said sales received a total of nine “reallygood, solid leads” from the 400 mailings.

“There’s a lot of things still in the pipeline, andwe won’t know total results until sales understandswhat kind of revenue the campaign will generate,”Devlin said. “But it should more than pay for themailing and the gift card.”

Williams said the “really good, solid leads” rep-resent potential revenue of $1.85 million.

For 2010, Affinity Insurance plans to refine this ini-tial effort with such offers as white papers, promotedvia e-mail, to drive prospects to the Affinity Web site.

“This isn’t about just touching prospects once ayear to invite them to have coffee,” Devlin said,“but rather a series of communications that keepsAffinity in the forefront of their attention.”

Originally published Feb. 8, 2010

social media

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BY PAUL GILLIN

E VEN IN A struggling economy,good programmers are hard tofind. So to find top talent, Top-

Coder, a developer of custom soft-ware for enterprise customers, runsan ongoing series of competitionsthrough its online community, givingprogrammers the opportunity to un-ravel thorny problems in exchangefor peer recognition and cash prizes.

More than 187,000 developersfrom 200 countries have entered aTopCoder competition, with somedevelopers earning six-figure annualsums, lucrative consulting agree-ments and bragging rights for theirsuccess. “We’re at a point where thecapacity to develop code is at a pacethat outstrips our client’s needs,’’ saidRob Hughes, chief operating officer.

TopCoder’s contests are just oneof the many ways in which b-to-bcompanies are leveraging onlinecommunities for everything frombranding to lead generation to adver-tising. Marketers are turning to socialmedia channels because of their lowcost, novelty and opportunity to en-gage customers on a more meaning-

ful level than they can achieve withconventional marketing.

Here are five ways social commu-nities can help further your market-ing goals.

1) Branding. The trusty blog isone of the most effective ways togenerate thought leadership and re-inforce market expertise. It’s no se-cret that nearly every major technol-ogy firm is using blogs to promotethe talents of its people, and servicesfirms such as Accenture and Price-waterhouseCoopers have gotten inon the game, too.

Hospitality companies have alsoled the way. Marriott Corp., for ex-ample, has attributed more than $1million in revenue to its CEO blog.

2) Lead generation. Social net-works open new channels to reachprospects, with “give to get’’ beingthe mantra. Instead of firing e-mailblasts into the dark, marketers canconnect with prospects based on in-terests or needs identified in theironline profiles. Plus, social networksmake it easy for members to shareopportunities with each other.

The Richardson (Texas) Chamber

of Commerce and Metroplex Tech-nology Business Council gatheredmore than 100 new leads for newmembers in two months by offeringfree seminars on how to use socialnetwork site LinkedIn to generatenew business. Organizers identifiedprospects by scanning currentLinkedIn member profiles and iden-tifying b-to-b interests.

3) Customer affinity. Webcastshave been a tried and true lead-gen-eration channel for more than adecade, but customer affinity is low.At best, attendees can ask a questionof presenters—but not of each oth-er. After the event, it’s up to the salesstaff to nurture leads.

Today, inexpensive social net-working tools make it possible tostart a conversation during an eventand continue it afterward.

Makino, a global machine toolsmaker, developed a webcast that in-cludes an online conversation aboutthe subject of the event. Attendancehas increased with every webinarfrom a handful when the serieslaunched in 2005 to between 270 and300 attendees per session today. “It

may not seem like a big number, butthese people are buying half-million-dollar products,’’ said Rick Segal, chiefexecutive of GyroHSR, the b-to-bagency that oversees the project.

4) Media. In these days of shrink-ing media, marketers are increasinglytaking the message into their ownhands. Tools such as blogs, podcastsand Twitter make it cheap and easy topublish, and networks of followerscan easily share news with each oth-er. The media are also increasinglytapping into corporate blogs andTwitter feeds to find out what’s hap-pening at the companies they cover.

Software maker CompuwareCorp. chose to take a message directlyto customers and prospects at a recentHealthcare Information and Manage-ment Systems Society (HIMSS) con-ference. Staffers searched Twitterfeeds to see who was talking aboutthe trade show and whether theymight be good prospects. They set upa Twitter account specifically for theevent and began following and“retweeting’’ comments from keyprospects to develop a following.

As a result, three executives from

tier one accounts came by the tradeshow booth for a demo. One visitorwasn’t on Compuware’s key accountlist but turned out to be an ideal tar-get customer. “From a sales and mar-keting perspective, this is huge,’’said Bridget Weir, Compuware mar-keting analyst.

5) Advertising. It costs nothing toset up a group on Facebook or a pro-file on YouTube and to use these ad-ditional channels to display market-ing messages or to test new concepts.Marketers can resurrect media cam-paigns that have run their courseand reach new audiences at practi-cally zero incremental cost.

“B-to-b marketers are in the bestposition to capitalize on social net-works because their task has alwaysbeen focused on a community ofpeople,’’ GyroHSR’s Segal said.“While there may be only 400 peopleinvolved in purchasing a jet aircraft,there are 10,000 people involved inthe roll-up that leads to that decision.That makes every b-to-b buy a com-munity decision.’’ �

Originally published June 8, 2009

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congratulations to the social media marketing winners and runners-up »

for more information contact »

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SEARCH MARKETING HAS beentransformed into much morethan simply a way to lure web-

site traffic and fill e-commerce shop-ping baskets. Especially for b-to-bcompanies, search can be seen as acritical lead-generation tactic.

“Search marketing is one of thegreatest tools in our lead-generationtoolbox because it allows you toreach your prospects at the precisemoment they’re interested in yourservices or products,” said RobertCoats, senior search strategist withSeattle-based b-to-b agency Hodg-son/Meyers.

When done right, search canhave a large and immediate impacton lead-gen.

“We’ve been taking part in paidsearch for [several] years and spend-ing well into six figures with mid-dling results,” said Blaine Mathieu,CMO at online marketing companyLyris Inc. “[In 2008] we decided to fo-cus on it as a key to lead generation,and the results have been incredible.”

With the help of an in-housesearch expert and continuously“tweaking the dials,” Mathieusaid, Lyris has increased top-tier,high-quality leads from paid searchfivefold.

Along with its paid search efforts,Lyris search-optimized its website,making sure titles, tags, keywordsand links appeared appropriatelyand could be found by search engines.

KEYWORD COMPETITIONUsing search for lead-gen has its

issues, however. Competition forpopular query phrases is drivingkeyword bids higher, and search en-gine optimization is complicated, re-quiring skilled (read, expensive) em-ployees or agencies.

Before searchers arrive at the site,of course, landing pages must bebuilt and tuned, and a process forcapturing and nurturing theseprospects must be put in place.

“There are so many things youcan do with search as a lead-gen tool,and a thousand ways to approachit,” Coats said. “The key is, it’s not somuch how you want to be found ashow your prospects are searching.It’s understanding psychology, andhuman nature and how people be-gin their searches around issuesthey’re trying to resolve.”

One notable feature of search as alead-gen tool, Coats said, is thatsearchers self-qualify themselves.They alert marketers as to what stagethey’re at in the sales funnel by the

keywords they search for—whether, for example, they’re doinginitial research or are ready to buy.

“My philosophy is, you look atthe keywords most relevant to whatstage the prospect is in,” Coats said.“For that early awareness stage, youwant your entire message—fromkeywords, to ad text, to landingpage, to material they walk awaywith after filling out that lead-genform—to be centered on that earlystage. The same must be true for lat-er-stage buyers.”

“You have to make sure each partof your search campaign is stage-specific,” he added.

Marketers are finding that manydisparate elements of search market-

ing—paid search, organic search,keywords, landing pages, offers andpremiums—must be complemen-tary to maximize lead-gen.

“We feel we have maxed out paidsearch as our primary lead-gen tool,but we haven’t spent a lot of time onour landing pages,” said Jeremy Far-ber, president and founder of PC Re-cycler, which markets its environ-mentally friendly and secure com-puter-disposal services to large com-panies, nonprofits and governmentdepartments in the Washington,D.C., area. “And there is a whole newopportunity for conversions outthere in the SEO field that we’re onlygetting 10% to 15% of now.”

Farber—a customer of Lyris’ e-mail and content management ser-

vices—considers a conversion to bewhen a prospect picks up the phoneand contacts the company directly.“If we can’t convert a prospect to acustomer in 60 to 90 days, we’ll stayin touch with occasional directmail,” he said.

OFFERS KEY TO SUCCESSMost marketers, however, con-

sider the offer a key to success—astrategy that informs their searchmarketing approach, too.

Brent Shean, senior manager-au-dience acquisition at IT BusinessEdge, an online publisher of busi-ness technology topics, makes sureoffers such as white papers or techmanagement e-books are mentionedin the headlines of his paid-searchads. That, he said, drives visitors tothe company’s website, where theyget their premium only if they regis-ter and sign up for one or more of thecompany’s newsletters.

“We find that getting people tosign up with a newsletter is key, alifetime value, so we’re nurturingpeople along as best we can,” Sheansaid.

Industry observers say the future

of search marketing as a lead-gentool will involve organic search andSEO, which will complement the al-ready well-understood paid-searchpart of the equation.

“CMOs need to be able to track,measure and understand the returnsassociated from investments in or-ganic search,” said Gregg Makuch,CMO of search optimization compa-ny Enquisite Inc.

“In order for organic to be on thesame plane as PPC or other direct-re-sponse media, marketers need to beable to link investments with actualresults, such as more online traffic,leads and conversions into cus-tomers,” Makuch said. “CMOs needto understand their ROI from organ-ic search and easily compare it withPPC, e-mail, direct mail, etc., to bet-ter allocate media budgets.”

Mathieu echoed that observa-tion: “I do believe there is a continu-ous cycle of improvement,” he said.“As tools get better, people get bet-ter, learn more and optimize notonly their websites but their ownmarketing skills as well.”

Originally published Sept. 14, 2009

Search as lead-genUnderstanding keywords prospects use atdifferent stages of buying process is first step


ask the expert

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ARY O’BRIEN IS chairman of the PPC Sum-mit (www.ppcsummit.com), a series ofconferences on search marketing held

around the country. She has held executive po-sitions with Goto.com, the first company to pro-vide pay-for-placement search results. Goto, lat-er named Overture Services, was acquired in2003 by Yahoo. BtoB asked O’Brien abouttrends and best practices in search marketing.

BtoB: What are some majorchallenges in b-to-b search market-ing?

O’Brien: Unlike on the consumerside, where customers entering thesales funnel are self-selecting them-selves to purchase something, first-time b-to-b visitors coming via asearch query aren’t looking to makea quick buy. The marketer needs toknow that and just try to start a rela-tionship with them. You don’t wantto overwhelm visitors by asking fortoo much information—maybejust the name and e-mail addresswill do. B-to-b marketerssometimes forget that, and craft landing pagesdesigned to sell straightaway or ask for toomuch information, which can cause visitors toabandon the page entirely. At this stage, you’rehoping to start a relationship, not ask them tomarry you on the first date.

BtoB: What’s the optimum nature of that be-ginning relationship?

O’Brien: A landing page without a call to ac-tion is a complete waste of time, so you’ve got toget people to engage with you in some way—sign up for a newsletter, say, or download awhite paper or get a free trial on something. Infact, the action people take on your landingpage is how you determine the effectiveness ofyour campaign. Whether that action is a whitepaper or a free trial, you have to get people to dosomething. Your website is a living, breathing

sales piece and needs the same messaging aswhat your salespeople are saying. I’m constantlysurprised at the number of marketers that don’tknow their conversion rate.

BtoB: Is offering white papers still a good wayfor b-to-b marketers to gain leads from search?

O’Brien: Usually yes. But marketers oftenerr with too small, or even overlong, white pa-pers. I like to see them in the 15-to-25-page

range, with lots of statistics,substantive numbers, charts,graphs, comparisons betweenmarkets and well-drawnconclusions. A lot of white papersare vaguely informational, with lit-tle substantive information inthem. If you offer that, you’ll notonly not build your brand butmaybe even diminish it.

BtoB: What about other offersthat can be effective on a landingpage to move along conversionsand produce leads from search?

O’Brien: Free trials seem to workvery well, especially with software

companies. Salesforce.com, which built its busi-ness around the one-month trial, is a prime ex-ample here. [This tactic] helps people really getengaged with the product. Discounts offeredon the landing page can work effectively, butthey should be used a little farther down in thefunnel. If people are at the informational stageand don’t yet have that relationship with thecompany, an offer like this won’t be that effec-tive. But if a visitor is in the buying phase, then itcan be very effective. You wouldn’t think some-one buying a $100,000 enterprise solutionwould consider, say, half-a-month off the per-seat fee as being very effective, but we all havethat value gene built in, and this year in particu-lar the value gene is really coming to the fore.

BtoB: How can marketers identify whereprospects are in the funnel when they arrive

anonymously via search queries?O’Brien: Prospects signal where they are

in the funnel with the search terms they use. Ifthey’re in the early phase of their research,they’ll search for very general, educationalkeywords. Marketers must design landingpages geared toward those general keywordphrases that indicate an early phase prospect,perhaps with those white papers andnewsletters. The next phase, which might en-tail comparison shopping, might prompt mar-keters to deploy keywords asking aboutbrand features, for example. The marketerthen can have those keywords point to alanding page citing product awards, clienttestimonials or perhaps an influential reviewin The New York Times.

At the final buying stage, marketers cananticipate that the prospect will search forterms that are very specific, such as “UnicaCRM for a 150-person business.” Here, thesearcher is telling you exactly what he wants,so the landing page those keywords point toneeds to be crafted appropriately to fit withthose exact expectations.

BtoB: How effectively are marketers captur-ing leads coming in from search queries?

O’Brien: Often, search operates in aseparate silo from other marketing areas, butautomation is addressing this. Salesforce, forexample, has partnered with Google AdWords,which is now totally integrated with its CRMsystem, driving people through the process. In-fusionsoft is tightly integrated with Google An-alytics, with the visitor identified with on-siteactions, and with appropriate auto-respondere-mails going out to help make that funnelshorter. I also see search playing well with bigenterprise solutions. Unica and Covario do thiswell, pushing the visitor into different parts ofthe funnel based on their self-selection.

Originally published Sept. 14, 2009

MARY O’BRIENChairman,

PPC Summit

search

BY MITCH WAGNER

I FTHEGREATRECESSIONhas taught mar-keters anything, it’s that measuringwhat’s working—or not working—

is essential to wringing value from web-sites and online marketing efforts. Mar-keters increasingly are relying on Webanalytics to help them move beyond sim-ple brand-building to turn Web trafficinto relationships, leads and sales.

Some companies are fine-tuningtheir Web analytics to focus on mea-suring which activities generate salesleads. They then use the informationthey gather to make design changes totheir websites.

Indium Corp., for example, is fo-cused on monitoring how the Webdrives sales leads. “I don’t get paid onclick-through rate or bounce rate,”said Rick Short, director of marketingcommunications for the supplier ofelectronics assembly components. “Iget paid when people buy something.So I focus on generating bona fide,opt-in leads—period.”

That’s not to say that Indium ignoresstandard Web statistics such as pageviews, site visits, bounce rates and averagetime on site. It uses that information to helpdetermine what content on the site is bestengaging visitors and driving them to reg-ister and contact the company. “I’m a busi-nessman; I’m here to sell,” Short said.

Indium’s perspective isn’t univer-sal. P2Energy Solutions doesn’t believeit’s practical to track which site visitorsturn into bona fide leads. “Our indus-try is still old-school in that relation-ships are still important to a sales rep,”said Rob Walter, interactive marketingspecialist for P2Energy, a vendor ofsoftware for energy exploration. Cus-tomers visit the site, research productsand technologies, then pick up thephone and call a salesperson withwhom they already have relationship,making it difficult to connect site ac-tivity and sales.

But even companies that rely on of-fline sales channels have found ways tomap online metrics to sales leads. 4Walls, for example, provides onlineapartment listings for owners of rentalhousing. The company uses unique

toll-free numbers connected to its ads,so it knows when one generates a leadfor one of its business-to-business cus-tomers. “We’ll consider any connectedcall over 10 seconds a lead,” said co-founder Lawrence Portnoff.

ENGAGING CONTENT MEASUREDWeb analytics prove particularly

useful in helping marketers determinewhat website content is engagingusers and what is not, and makechanges accordingly.

Budnick Converting, which cus-tom-converts tapes for industrial man-ufacturing customers, relies on thedata to determine when to break outmicrosites for hot products or targetparticular geographic regions or in-dustries from which it is getting a lot ofincoming traffic, said Lance Schneider,e-business manager for Budnick Con-verting. Sales reports can take five tosix months to deliver information, butWeb analytics delivers in real time.

Budnick makes site decisions basedon a variety of metrics, including ex-ternal search traffic, internal search en-gine analytics and spikes in searcheson particular keywords. Based on thatinformation, Schneider has a numberof actions he can take: Put a featuredad on the home page to drive morepeople to look at a particular product,geo-target content, develop new land-ing pages or adjust keywords to im-prove search standings.

“I figure out what’s working andenhance it, and add peripheral thingsto make it work even better,” Schnei-der said.

Wittenstein North America alsouses Web analytics to help redesign itssite. The company makes motion-con-trol systems for machines, manufactur-ing and aeronautical systems. Witten-stein rolled out a product selector inJune with low expectations for thetool’s popularity, but Web analyticsshowed it was a hit with customers. “Itwas amazing to see the interaction peo-ple were having with that tool,” saidMarketing Manager Miriam Metcalfe.As a result, Wittenstein is now devel-oping a full-blown configurator to de-

ploy on its site.Marketers rely on a variety of tools

to track Web analytics, but several re-ported that the free Google Analyticssoftware is their service of choice.“That’s the key tool,” Indium’s Shortsaid. Indium augments Google Analyt-ics with custom tools written by a con-sultant to provide additional metrics.

Wittenstein also relies on GoogleAnalytics, and doesn’t use any paid ana-lytics tools at all. “I don’t know whetheryou should tell Google that; they’re sav-ing us money,” Metcalfe said.

4 Walls uses Google Analytics,along with the open source AWStatsand Sawmill from FlowerFire, to mea-sure metrics. Portnoff said the compa-ny needs all three largely for legacyreasons, having built some tools andsystems to work with each package.

Over time, 4 Walls expects to “ditcheverything” except Google Analytics,which Portnoff compared with Quick-Books. “Whether it’s good or bad, it’sbecome a standard,” he said. “It’s thetool that marketers know how to use.”

Paid tools aren’t dead, of course. Inaddition to Google Analytics, P2Ener-gy Solutions relies on HubSpot Inc.’sHubSpot to track e-mail marketingand other push marketing. HubSpotdoesn’t just provide the company withdata; it helps it optimize the P2EnergySolutions Web site.

Despite marketers’ widespread useof Web analytics, social media remainlargely unmeasured by b-to-b compa-nies. Indium, however, is an excep-tion—with 70 blogs feeding to Face-book and YouTube. Social media helpthe company build community, Shortsaid. “This is a great way to build famil-iarity, which ultimately leads to trust,”he said. The company uses tools totrack which bloggers and topics gener-ate the greatest number of sales leads.

Likewise, mobile marketing andmeasurement are not yet on the radarfor most b-to-b marketers. “We don’tsee a need for it,” Metcalfe said. “Ourcustomers are primarily engineersworking on development teams in of-fices; that’s where they’re using thewebsite. It will be interesting to see ifin the future, in the next year, if it’ssomething we should be doing.”


Design by metrics CCiittrriixx SSyysstteemmss uusseess WWeebbaannaallyyttiiccss ttoo bboooosstt rreessuullttssBY MITCH WAGNER

C ITRIX SYSTEMS, an enterprise software company, has multiplegoals for its website. The site (www.citrix.com) educates cus-tomers about products and services, serves as a branding ve-

hicle, provides information for customers and partners, and gener-ates leads for channel partners.

The company has a variety of metrics for success, includingmeasuring search engine optimization, customer and partnersatisfaction, and recruitment for an end-user event called Syn-ergy.

Susan Zykoski, marketing business analyst for Citrix, said sheuses the company’s search engine optimization tools to find outwhich terms are most often searched on a monthly basis. For ex-ample, “virtual desktop” is a very effective search term for Citrix;it’s searched 200,000 times per month. But the phrase “virtualdesktop applications” gets only 2,000 searches per month.

Citrix relies on NetInsight from Unica Corp. to track search en-gine optimization and provide other Web metrics. NetInsightshows referrals by search engines, visits per month based on key-words and more. It tracks visitors’ paths through the site to helpgauge the quality of user experience.

Using the data from NetInsight, Citrix can determine goals foreach of its product groups, which might include education abouta new product or generating sales leads. It also assigns each web-site visit a weighted value based on the visitor’s activity. (Forexample, did the visitor download a white paper, look at a videoor fill out a lead form?)

Citrix plans to upgrade to the next version of NetInsight, whichwill include social media metrics. “What that does is tracks ouruser experience,” Zykoski said. “If they start on Twitter, when theycome to Citrix, do they fill out a lead form?”

Citrix also uses Web analytics to track the effectiveness of acompany branding campaign that includes both print and Webadvertising as well as highway billboards. Ads point to differentlanding pages and, by measuring visitors originating on thosepages, Citrix determines how effective the ads are.

Another area where analytics is proving extremely useful is ingenerating attendance at Synergy, the company’s end-user event.Citrix is generating leads for Synergy using e-mail blasts, searchengine optimization and marketing and banner advertising. Thecompany uses unique tracking codes in URLs to determine whichcampaigns are most cost-effective.

“As these things are launched, we code them all. I know wherevisitors are coming from, page views from campaigns, and I canoverlay that with registration. And then what I can do after all thatis said and done is determine how much did we spend on each ofthe registration vehicles to get a registration,” Zykoski said.

Web analytics have provided some unexpected insights. Forexample, using NetInsight, Citrix found sponsored links fromGoogle and Yahoo were most effective. Four keywords drove 80%of registrations. Interestingly, those four were “software forum,”“IT conference,” “network security seminar” and “software presen-tation,” Zykoski said. “This is not what we would have projected,which is why analytics is such a great vehicle to show you factsabout what is really happening,” she said.

The company redesigned its landing pages and minisites forSynergy to highlight those terms and optimized the sites to fun-nel visitors through to registration.

Web analytics showed that online ads, specifically banners onindustry sites, had the highest cost per registration, Zykoski said.“In one case we spent $20,000 on a campaign and only receivedone registration [attributable to it],” she said. Knowing the effec-tiveness of different campaigns enabled Citrix to increase registra-tions while maintaining or even reducing its marketing spending.


website


Analytics help marketers adaptwebsites to customer behavior

P ERRY KAMEL IS executive direc-tor of Accenture Interactive.Jeanne G. Harris is an execu-

tive research fellow at Accenture andthe co-author of the book “Analyticsat Work: Smarter Decisions, BetterResults” (Harvard Business SchoolPublishing Corp., 2010). BtoB spokewith them about how companies are

making data-base analysis part oftheir decisions.

BtoB: What should marketers lookat when it comes to Web analytics?

Kamel: Focus on measuring theminimum you absolutely must todrive the maximum relevant impact.

That sounds like a simple principle,but it’s in stark contrast to what peo-ple have done for the past 15 years,where there has been a tendency tomeasure everything that’s measurablejust in case you might need it. Focuson collecting outcomes that matter,which are aligned with and enable theachievement of your visitors’ objec-

tives as well as your business goals. Ifyou can do that with fewer amountsof data, good on you. It’s not aboutquantity, it’s about quality.

Harris: We focus in the book onthe need to develop more propri-etary and unique metrics to focus notonly on what happened in the past,but on what ought to happen next.

Kamel: Web metrics have beenaround a long time, and I think we’re atan inflection point in the industry

where there is a new direction emerg-ing. People are saying, “Wait a minute,what we’ve been doing all this timemay not be the best way for us [going]forward.” One of the emergent prac-tices that I think is showing realpromise is to discern, hopefully at thepoint of entry, what the visitor’s pur-pose is and how can I dynamically opti-mize the experience to fit that purpose.


Align measurement with visitor goalsask the expert


website

BtoB Webcasts let you in on the conversation between top marketers and industry experts as they discuss the best strategies and tools for reaching target audiences and generating quality leads. Many BtoB Webcasts explore the world of lead generation. All webcasts are archived and accessible anytime day or night.

Some recent lead gen Webcasts include:

• Maximizing Marketing ROI: How to Tap the Full Potential of Your Customer Base

• Seven Kinds of Lead Nurturing Programs and How to Build Them

• Content Marketing: The Secret to Success with B-to-B Marketing Automation

• 3 Must Have Lead Nurturing Processes to Grow Your Marketing Funnel

• Left & Right Brains Unite! Making Marketing Measurement Meaningful

Access them now at www.BtoBonline.com/webcasts

Company URL Phone Products DescriptionBridgelineDigital

www.bridgelinesw.com

(781) 376-5555 iAPPS Analytics Web application management solution that features deep, data-level integration within Webanalytics product

Clicky WebAnalytics

http://getclicky.com N/A Clicky Web Analytics, Twitter Analytics Real-time Web analytics, views of data on Web site traffic, links to the sources sending traffic

Coremetrics www.coremetrics.com (866) 493-2673 Coremetrics Analytics, Explore, Impression Attribution,Intelligent Offer, LIVEmail, Search, AdTarget

Marketing optimization, merchandising, content analysis, ad hoc reporting, mobile analytics,impression attribution, targeted e-mail, search marketing

Google www.google.com/analytics

(650) 253-0000 Google Analytics Free analytics product with segmentation, motion charts, custom reports and dashboards, AdWordsintegration, internal site search, benchmarking, trend and date slider, funnel visualization

Lyris Inc. www.lyris.com (800) 768-2929 Lyris HQ Integrated online marketing solution that combines e-mail marketing with search, social and mobilechannels, enhanced by embedded deliverability and Web analytics

MetronomeLabs

www.metronomelabs.com

(412) 408-3167 Metronome Capture, Examine, Explain Application with built-in or custom reports detailing real-time hits, page views, sessions, pathanalysis, visits and visitors, Web site troubleshooting, query building, HTTP transactions

OmnitureInc.

www.omniture.com (877) 722-7000 DataWarehouse, Discover, Genesis, Insight, OnPremise, OnlineMarketing Suite, SearchCenter, SiteCatalyst, SiteSearch,Test&Target

Online business optimization software with real-time analytics, path analysis, customized tracking,commerce reporting, site design, virtual focus groups

Pardot www.pardot.com (404) 492-6845 Prospect Insight Marketing Automation Marketing automation platform featuring lead nurturing, scoring, activity tracking, landing pagemanagement, e-mail marketing

ParkerSoftware

www.parker-software.com

(800) 680-7712 WhosOn Tracks how visitors use a website, allows visitors to communicate with business via Web page, livechat and click-to-call-back, live analytic reports

SageMetricsInc.

www.sagemetrics.com (818) 505-6409 SageAMP, SageAnalyst 10.0 Data aggregation, tracking, targeting, site process and path analysis, customer profiling, reporting,data acquisition and processing infrastructure

SAP www.sap.com (650) 849-4000 SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, Voyager, Workbench, SAPBusiness Intelligence OnDemand, SAP Set Analysis

Text analysis, predictive analytics, strategic planning, initiative management, scorecards, dashboardsand visualizations, reporting, modeling, search and exploration

SAS www.sas.com (800) 727-0025 SAS Web analytics, business analytics, data and text mining,marketing automation, marketing optimization

Monitors key performance indicators for factors that influence business metrics to refine marketingand service strategies

Theorem Inc. www.theoreminc.net (973) 665-1700 Theorem Analytics Data integration, advanced reporting, statistical models for online campaigns, marketingdashboards, customizable private labeled interface

Unica Corp. www.unica.com (781) 839-8000 Unica NetInsight, Unica NetInsight OnDemand, UnicaInteractive Marketing OnDemand

Self-service capabilities on open data architecture allow behavior analysis, custom reporting;Interactive Marketing OnDemand: combines analytics, e-mail and personalization

VisiStat Inc. www.visistat.com (408) 725-9377 VisiStat, LeadCaster, AdCam, PageAlarm Real-time lead generation built on top of a Web analytics engine, website uptime monitor, onlinecampaign conversion tracking

WebtrendsInc.

www.webtrends.com (877) 932-8736 Webtrends Ad Director, Analytics 9, Optimize, ProfessionalServices, Social Measurement, Visitor Data Mart

Manages, optimizes and expands paid-search advertising; measures online presence from static sitecontent, customer behavior, engagement

Yahoo WebAnalytics

www.web.analytics.yahoo.com

(408) 349-3300 Yahoo Web Analytics Near real-time reporting on customers, including what actions they take and how much each visit,channel and keyword is worth; data-graphing

Web analytics vendors at a glance


W HEN CAREFULLY targeted andproduced, webinars can bea digital marketer’s key

lead-gen channel. Many marketersfind online presentations, both liveand archived, can augment other tac-tics, including search, e-mail and,most recently, social media.

“Webinars drove the largestproportional amount of our leadsin 2009,” said Dan Ziman, directorof marketing programs at LithiumTechnologies, a builder of socialcommunities, blogs and forums forits corporate customers. “We gen-erally have 400 to 800 registrantsfor every webinar, and 45% to50% attend.”

Beginning in late 2008, the com-pany—which previously had stagedwebinars only occasionally, whenthey might support a particularproduct launch, for example—de-cided to invest in them regularly.

“Now, we do about two webinarsper quarter minimum, putting in thedates and then looking for hot topicsand speakers,” Ziman said. The com-pany rigorously screens attendeesand scores them as potential buyersat particular buying stages beforehanding them to sales.

“It’s extremely cost-effective forus, one of the lowest cost-per-leadchannels we have, in the $30 to $50range,” Ziman said. In the year sinceits webinar series began, he said,

Lithium’s net new leads increased20% to 25%.

The role of webinars haschanged over time. First seen as anovelty, then as a cost-effectivestage for conveying thought leader-ship and customer solutions, webi-nars are now increasingly perceivedas a lead-generation and lead-quali-fication platform.

“At first there was a gee-whiz fac-tor about them, and a lot of compa-nies took webinar leads and gavethem directly to the sales team to setappointments,” said Todd Davison,president of Bulldog Solutions,which provides lead-gen services,primarily via webinars. “But peoplegot sick of getting annoying salescalls after each one. Now, marketersare seeing webinars are part of thebuyer’s journey, of a contact pointon a roadmap.”

Davison uses his own webinarservices as a marketing tool, but notso much for rounding up any and allprospects. Instead, he said he findsthat webinars are more effectivedeeper in the sales cycle, when at-tendees are nearer to signing a deal.Used this way, webinars—com-bined with dynamic nurturing, leadscoring and routing, and an analysisof other prospect behaviors—yieldstronger leads.

“Marketing has to be responsiveto that,” he said. “If you’re just jump-ing into it with the expectation that

you’ll get 200 people at a webinar tofill up your pipeline, you’re settingyourself up for disappointment.”

Another aspect of webinars thathas matured is its technological ca-pabilities, which are staying abreastof overall marketing trends. Whilemost webinar platforms possessrudimentary reporting—attendee

volume, drop-outs, basic engage-ment, etc.—the leading platformsnow can link to marketing automa-tion solutions for deeper dives andlead qualifying.

“Marketing partners can gatherWeb and e-mail stats, registrations,attendance, live feedback and otherinteractions, and engagement viasurveys,” said Maria Pergolino, se-nior manager-inbound marketingwith marketing automation compa-ny Marketo. The company’s auto-mated solutions can connect viaAPIs with most webinar platforms,she said.

“And for those people who regis-

tered for the webinar but had a con-flict and couldn’t attend, the market-ing automation is sophisticatedenough to follow up but not botherthem about things they actually didwatch,” Pergolino said. “Then, it canwait two months and automaticallyoffer a chance to re-engage with themissed webinar on-demand,archived on a Web site.”

The picture isn’t completely rosy,however. Given the plethora of webi-nars these days, it isn’t altogether sur-prising that some companies report adecline in attendee registrations.

“In 2009, we saw a slightly lowerregistration rate, and a very big de-crease in attendance-to-registrationratio,” said Kristin Hambleton, se-nior director of marketing for mar-keting software provider NeolaneInc., of the company’s webinar se-ries. “Attendance for us was down10% to 15% in 2009. There is some

fatigue out there.”Hambleton attributes some of the

drop-off to the “new normal” modeof companies maintaining produc-tivity with lower staffing, “so peo-ple don’t have much time anymore,”she said.

Nor are all marketers satisfiedwith webinars as a lead-gen toolwhen compared with other one-on-one marketing channels.

In its most recent study of themarket (“How To Make B2B Webi-nars Deliver Better Leads”), releasedin 2009, Forrester Research foundthat webinar use is on par with in-side sales and face-to-face events,

but that as an effective lead-genera-tion tool it lags: 33% of marketerssaid it’s highly effective comparedwith 40% for inside sales and 52%for face-to-face events.

However, this dissatisfaction maybe due to marketers’ misuse of thechannel, wrote Laura Ramos,VP-in-dustry marketing, Xerox Global Ser-vices , in the report.

“Marketers use webinars to at-tract a pack of prospects but leavesales with the job of sorting out thepurchasers from the posers,” Ramoswrote.

Despite some misgivings, manycompanies report excellent resultswith webinars as their primary lead-gen tool.

VFM Leonardo Inc., whichserves video clips to travel-bookingsites on behalf of the company’s ho-tel clients, has found webinars par-ticularly attractive to the generalmanagers and marketing directors atindividual properties, said Directorof Marketing Shawn De Souza.

“The big thing we try to sell towebinar attendees is that they needto lift themselves out of that list ofsameness on Travelocity or Expe-dia,” De Souza said. “We try to ex-plain these concepts by bringing inexperts like Forrester Research Trav-el Analyst Henry Harteveldt.”

Interestingly, VFM Leonardo usesits webinars to acquaint completelycold prospects, filling the top of itssales funnel. After the webinar, thecompany conducts a four- to five-week nurturing program, using e-mailto reach the webcast registrants.

Having staged webinars for ayear and a half, De Souza said thetactic has become the company’s No.1 lead-gen approach, and has dra-matically shortened sales cycles.

“Our typical sales cycle is six orseven weeks, but some deals haveclosed in less than a week due to ourwebinars,” he said.

Originally published Jan. 18, 2010

Webinars a gooddraw for leadsMarketers find targeted topics and trackabilitycreate cost-effective pipeline of qualified leads

7 tips on using e-mail to drive webinar attendanceBY KAREN J. BANNAN

WEBINARS CAN BE a smart way to help people learnmore about your company or brand, and e-mailmarketing is one of the best ways to get the mes-

sage out about an event. Here are some promotion dos anddon’ts, courtesy of Janine Popick, CEO and co-founder ofonline marketing provider VerticalResponse.

1) Don’t forget the basics. It might sound silly, but mar-keters often forget the most salient information when sendingout a promotional e-mail, such as date, time or program name,Popick said. Identify the time zone, for example, and includeopt-out—and opt-in—links. In addition, make sure there’s alink that recipients can click on to preregister for the program.

2) Do keep content simple. Webinar invitations shouldinclude the who, what and why right upfront. Provide a biofor anyone speaking at the event and bullet points that detailexactly what participants should expect to take away fromthe program. “Really hype the speaker and [his or her] legiti-macy,” Popick said. “You want people to walk away fromyour message with a good idea of why they need to attend.”

3) Don’t be shy about reminders. If someone has signedup for your program, remind them a week before and thenagain the day before. It won’t seem intrusive if you keep it ba-sic, including a link to the program, the time and dayreminder, and a quick synopsis of what the recipient shouldexpect. “The message can be changed up a bit, but the bulletpoints should probably stay the same,” Popick said.

4) Do use e-mail as a follow-up vehicle. Oncesomeone takes the time to attend a webinar, it’s crucial thatyou reach them in some way immediately following theevent. E-mails should include a link to the recorded webinaras well as a thank you. Prospects may also receive a specialoffer. “Segment your attendee list into attendees and regis-trants. Then segment each into prospects and customers,”Popick suggested. “Leads who didn’t attend should get alink and a special offer.”

5) Don’t overlook the power of testimonials. Youprobably use case studies and customer quotes in tradition-al e-mail marketing. It can work just as well in webinar pro-motions. You can include links to previous webinars in your

current invitation and call out the benefits of attending oneof your events by letting a recent attendee explain what heor she got out of the experience, Popick said.

6) Do cull webinar transcripts and materials for futuree-mail content. During a successful webinar you mayreceive more questions than you have time to answer.Those questions can be repurposed as e-newsletter contentor blog fodder, Popick said. “You can include a sentence inthe follow-up e-mail that says, ‘If you didn’t get yourquestion answered, check out our blog,’ ” she said. You canexcerpt one or two so registrants who didn’t attend have an-other reason to click through to the recorded webinar.

7) Don’t oversell yourself. Webinars work best whenthey are used for thought leadership and education; youdon’t want your entire program to be too self-promotional.Don’t be afraid to tap speakers from outside your company,Popick said. “You want your speaker to be viewed as a bestpractice guru within your industry,” she said.

Originally published Feb. 25, 2010, on btobonline.com

webinars


“At first there was a gee-whizfactor about them. … Now,marketers are seeingwebinars are part of thebuyer’s journey, of a contactpoint on a roadmap.”Todd Davison, president, Bulldog Solutions


webinars

Demand Generat ion Unleashed

.

Company Location URL Phone Key executive Product/Platform Marketing services

AccelaCommunications

Southborough,Mass.

www.accelacommunications.com

(508) 303-9700 Bill Reinstein,president-CEO

AccelaCast & AccelaWorks: Suite of software platforms and professionalservices to produce, deliver and measure interactive video communicationsacross a variety of industries; data acquisition, measurement, classification anddelivery

Online multimediamanagement

Adobe Systems San Jose, Calif. www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnectpro

(888) 649-2990 Shantanu Narayen,president-CEO

Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro: Solution that enables live, interactive Webmeetings, virtual classes, on-demand presentations and courses, and groupcollaboration

Multimedia Webcommunicationsplatform

BrightTALK San Francisco www.brighttalk.com (415) 955-0581 Paul Heald, CEO BrightTALK: Webcast platform and online community where businessprofessionals create and view webcasts through embeddable channels;includes social media distribution features

Online eventcoordination

Cisco WebEx San Jose, Calif. www.webex.com (877) 509-3239 Tracey Newell, VP-worldwide sales

WebEx: Users share presentations, applications, documents and desktops, withfull-motion video and integrated audio, in a rich multimedia environment

SaaS Webcommunicationsplatform

Citrix Online Goleta, Calif. www.citrixonline.com (805) 690-6400 Brett Caine,president

GoToWebinar: Enables users to set up a webinar, gather and profile onlineaudiences in real time, and deliver presentations to up to 1,000 attendees

Online webinarcommunicationsplatform

ON24 San Francisco www.on24.com (415) 369-8000 Sharat Sharan,president-CEO

ON24 Webcast Center | ON24 Virtual Show: SaaS solution for planning,executing and managing live and on-demand webcasts, virtual events,podcasts and rich-media ad banners, with reporting and audience interactivity

Webcastcommunicationsplatform

Onstream Media PompanoBeach, Fla.

www.onstreammedia.com

(954) 917-6655 Randy Selman,chairman andpresident-CEO

Onstream Media Webinar: Provides a full or self-service, custom brandedsolution for live or on-demand lead generation webinars including eventmanagement; planning, implementation, and measurement for maximum ROI

Pre-event e-mail, leadscoring, live eventplatform, real-timeregistrant data

Stream57 New York www.stream57.com (212) 909-2550 Ben Chodor,president

StreamLine 3: Interactive webcasting software using advanced live and on-demand streaming video technology with InterCall’s communications services;e-learning, online training and promotional programs, in-house platformdevelopment and innovation

Webcasting,consulting, eventservices, videoproduction, customsoftware development

TalkPoint New York www.talkpointcommunications.com

(212) 909-2900 John Spillane,strategic accountexecutive

TalkPoint Video, TalkPoint Audio, TalkPoint Webinar: Platforms forwebcasts, featuring audio, video, synchronized slide presentation, polling andQ&As

Multimedia Webcommunicationsplatforms

ThomsonReuters

New York http://thomsonreuters.com/corpcomm

(646) 223-4000 Thomas Glocer,CEO

Webcasting: Measurable webcasting services for business corporatecommunications

Live and on-demandwebcasting, webinars,production services

Webinar vendors at a glance

Lead marketing proficiency gapPlease indicate the stage of maturity that your organization is at for implementation of thefollowing marketing automation categories.

Lead management/marketing misalignedWhere are marketing and sales most poorly aligned?

Source: “IDC’s Technology Marketing Barometer,” IDC, 2009


When should marketing hand off leads to sales?Regarding lead generation, when does the role of the marketer end? At what pointshould marketing hand the program off to sales? Nurturing

Marketing performancemeasurement

Database marketing

Marketing resourcemanagement

Marketing lead management

Content and marketing assetmanagement

Source: “B-to-B Web Analytics Survey,” BtoB and the Web Analytics Association, 2010 Source: “B-to-B Web Analytics Survey,” BtoB and the Web Analytics Association, 2010

Less vs. more alignedLeast important

Data

No consistentprocess,mostly manual

Consistent process and wideadoption, significant

efficiency and effectivenessimprovements

State of maturity1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Source: “IDC’s Technology Marketing Barometer,” IDC, 2009 Source: “2010 Outlook: Marketing Priorities and Plans,” BtoB

Involvement never ends,

but type andvolume of

engagementchange

58%■■ Desired state■■ Current state

Once the leads havebeen qualified and

scored16%

Once a programhas started to

generate leads10%

Once the ad, tactic orprogram goes live orhas been deployed

5%

Once a lead has beennurtured and showsstrong intent to buy

8%

Once a sale hasbeen completed

3%

Other1%

Online marketing success metrics Please rate the importance of the following metrics when measuring the success of anonline program or marketing campaign.

1 2 3 4 5

Click-through rate 5% 12% 30% 41% 12%

Website traffic or impressions 5 16 32 36 12

Marketing-qualified leads 1 3 13 45 39

Number of sales-accepted opportunities 1 3 15 41 40

Revenue 2 2 10 26 61

Marketing department goals What should the overall goal and mission of the marketing department be? Please ratethe following, with 1 being least important and 5, most important.

1 2 3 4 5

To raise awareness 0% 5% 15% 39% 40%

To serve as the voice of company 2 9 25 34 31

To drive qualified leads 1 2 12 33 52

To nurture leads 3 11 27 38 21

1 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

1 2 3 4 5

CXO-level marketing and sales

Sales support needs

Integration of planning and budgeting

Lead management infrastructure

Lead management process

Shared metrics for marketing and sales

Source: “IDC’s Technology Marketing Barometer,” IDC, 2010

Most important

Top automation priorities What are your top marketing automation priorities?

Lead management4.4

CRM4.2

Campaign management 4.0

Database marketing4.0

Social media metrics3.1

PRM2.9

Marketing asset management2.8

Marketing resource management2.5

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