Thought Leadership Interview #20: Helping Marketers Find a “New Lane” to Success: Kristin Hambelton from Neolane

May 28, 2009 by 1 Comment

This blog is fast becoming a lead nurturing/marketing automation blog. Today, we have Kristin Hambelton from Neolane, a player in the marketing automation space.  She  is senior director of marketing at has been around the block with 18 years of marketing experience with high technology products and services companies.

Good job Kristin!

1. What are the three trends you see emerging in 2009?

The economy is still a factor shaping B2B marketing trends today. However, we see many of our customers and prospects taking advantage of the down market to revisit their marketing strategies and identify processes that can be streamlined and made more efficient. In many cases, this means investing in technology that can help automate critical lead nurturing and measurement processes.

B2B marketers also seem to be more willing to experiment with tactics such as cross-selling/up-selling and trigger event marketing, which are more traditionally utilized in the B2C space. Being able to personalize these efforts can be very effective for B2B marketers, especially as customer retention and improving the customer experience remain important goals that impact the bottom line.

Another trend is a more concentrated effort to expand B2B marketing campaigns to incorporate multiple channels.  Many BtoB marketers still rely on traditional print and email channels to communicate with customers, but other channels such as the Web, events, mobile communications and social media are equally important elements of a comprehensive and coordinated cross-channel strategy.

2. What are the biggest challenges for 2009?

From our perspective, one of the biggest challenges for B2B marketers comes down to improving campaign measurement and ROI, which in turn allows them to protect their budgets. Everyone talks about measurement and ROI, but despite available technologies, it is still incredibly difficult to do, especially with B2B campaigns that tend to be long and have multiple touch points.

Based on industry discussions and research, we’ve concluded that while a majority of marketers believe there is a direct link between marketing and the bottom line, few can actually prove it. This can be attributed to heavy reliance on multiple, antiquated spreadsheets to get the data they need to draw relevant conclusions.  And even if they can get the data, the conclusions are often questionable and open to interpretation. Manual Excel-based processes make defending budgets to the C-suite a Herculean task.

3. What are three metrics that B2B marketers should care about and why?

In our experience, the three metrics that BtoB marketers should care about most are:  Number of leads generated (quantity measurement); qualified leads as a percentage of leads generated (quality measurement); and cost per lead (effectiveness measurement).  It’s important to note, however, that these metrics are not mutually exclusive and should absolutely be used in conjunction to accurately assess campaign effectiveness.

Before starting any campaign, marketers must work with their sales team to agree on how to define qualified leads. As experienced marketers know, number of leads alone is not enough.  Qualified leads are a quality measurement for campaigns that can be used early on, in conjunction with the quantity metric (number of leads).  These two metrics together help to project the impact that the marketing campaign(s) will have on company revenue. Determining criteria for lead qualification helps organizations better understand which leads should move through the qualification process (and eventually into the sales pipeline), helping to determine early cost-per-qualified lead calculations.

As marketers track that predetermined set of metrics, if something doesn’t look right, they need to address it right away.  For example, if there is a high number of click-throughs on an email campaign but no conversions, maybe the landing page isn’t set up correctly to pass the information to the sales force automation or CRM system.

Ultimately, conversions to the pipeline is the end goal.  However, if you can’t deliver conversions in a cost-effective manner, the marketing budget will quickly be depleted.  That means marketers will be prevented  from not only generating additional leads into the pipeline from those “known high quality lead sources,” but they will also be prohibited from testing out new marketing channels that might provide that “secret” lair of high quality/low-cost leads we all dream about.  And because the channel that worked six months ago might not work now, smart marketers need to continue to focus on this cost per lead number in order to gain the budget flexibility to try new strategies.

Additionally, marketers who can’t provide a cost per lead metric that is in-line with industry standards and/or can’t demonstrate a decrease in this number over time will lose credibility in the eyes of the C-Suite.  Now more than ever, marketers are beholden to generating defensible ROI in order to secure budget for future programs.  Without proper accountability and trackability of the cost per lead metric, marketers put themselves at risk for losing budget and having even less to work with to drive leads into the funnel.

4. What are the top oversights marketers are making regarding lead generation?

First, for many organizations, the lead management process is often oversimplified, consisting of basic, repetitive lead generation practices that are linear in focus and only cover email and Web channels.  Second, marketers can’t afford to run multiple campaigns expecting to fill their pipeline with large volumes of leads, assuming that a certain percentage will naturally convert. That strategy no longer works.  Marketers must run fewer, more targeted and personalized campaigns with the objective of generating high quality leads that have a solid chance of converting to sales.  Marketers absolutely have to make every program count.

5. What will you prescribe to marketers to carry out effective lead generation?

As marketing organizations turn to more sophisticated means of generating leads, they must nurture them in a consistent and coordinated way across communications channels.  By using technology to help sustain conversations, then capturing interactions with prospects across in-bound and outbound channels including email, direct mail, mobile or Web sites into a single, centralized data mart, marketers can take decisive, personalized action.

We suggest investing in newer lead management solutions that combine demand generation, lead management and measurement, providing the infrastructure marketers need to drive demand, intelligently manage leads and measure results all in one place.  Most importantly, automation can be used to create a single, cross-channel view of the customer in order to generate more effective, ROI-driven campaigns.

6. What three Web 2.0 applications, cutting-edge technologies or lead generation sources do marketers HAVE to consider to be successful?

Social media applications – especially those like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter – allow marketers to better monitor how their brand is perceived by partners, customers and prospects.  It also enables them to revert to a more grass-roots oriented approach to community building.  By creating/nurturing distinct communities of people that are interested in the company’s products or services, social media applications provide opportunities to engage in timely, interactive dialogue with customers that other, more “one way” mediums simply cannot.

7. What do you hope for in B2B sales and marketing for the new year?

We still see a lot of work that needs to be done to better align sales and marketing in order to improve lead management effectiveness.  We’re talking about everything from synchronizing siloed databases and applications to simply agreeing on how to define “qualified” leads, and how those leads should advance through the pipeline.  Ultimately, the two groups need to work together to generate higher quality leads using better lead capture, nurture and scoring.

Craig Rosenberg is the Funnelholic. He loves sales, marketing, and things that drive revenue. Follow him on Google+ or Twitter

Filed Under: b2b Marketing, Marketing Automation

The Definitive Lead Nurturing Playbook with Tony Jaros, Sirius Decisions

May 21, 2009 by 1 Comment

I am doing a great webinar with Tony Jaros from Sirius Decisions on Lead Nurturing.  I just want to get a couple things straight about why I legitimately think you should come:

1. There is actionable advice  –  there is a lot of lead nurturing content on the Internet, none of them as good as this.  Tony will give attendees a playbook so that they can go out and do something about this.

2. Lead nurturing is the most important thing you will do this year, and you have no idea how to get it done effectively. This is a repeat of #1, but it’s true.  Lead nurturing is not just a buzzword, it’s mission-critical.

3. Tony Jaros is one of the smartest dudes in the business – folks, he is really good.  And I have seen the deck.  This will be really good stuff.

4. There will be zero selling, only educating – I like that myself.  Now, I will sell myself and Tony of course, but that’s ego and not for commercial reasons.

I look forward to people coming to the webinar, and I hope for lively conversation.  Please join us and please pass along word to your friends.

Click here to join The Definitive Lead Nurturing Playbook with Tony Jaros and The Funnelholic.

Craig Rosenberg is the Funnelholic. He loves sales, marketing, and things that drive revenue. Follow him on Google+ or Twitter

Filed Under: b2b Marketing, DRIP and Lead Nurturing, webinar Tagged With: ,

Reporting on Demand Gen: Thought Leadership Interview #19 with Andrew Gaffney of the Demand Gen Report

May 19, 2009 by 1 Comment

Today we have a colleague of mine from the Lead Generation Blogosphere, Andrew Gaffney — the editor of DemandGen Report — The Scorecard for Sales & Marketing Automation. It’s a must-subscribe for anybody in the “game,” and I am really excited to get him to join in on the Thought Leadership fun.

Gaffney also heads up G3 Communications, which specializes in helping B2B organizations develop custom content for thought leadership and lead nurturing campaigns. Translation: Like me, he doesn’t just write about it, he lives it.

Enjoy the interview.

1.    What are the three trends you see emerging in 2009?
The first and most prominent would be more emphasis on lead nurturing as companies look to maximize their marketing investments. When the economy was still in a growth mode, it was easy for B2B marketers to keep paying for more new leads to feed the funnel. Now, as efficiency has become the rule of the day, companies realize they can’t afford to let valid contacts waste away in their database.

The second trend I’ve seen is more focus on lead progression and the conversion of leads through the various stages of the marketing and sales funnel, ultimately increasing the number of opportunities the sales team is trying close.

Finally, I would point to the increase of new media and new tactics to engage prospects. Whether it is social media, viral video, e-books, podcasts or other types of content, B2B marketers are realizing they need multiple touch points in order to stand out from the crowd noise.

2.       What are the biggest challenges for 2009?

Buyers are clearly pulling back and really looking for reasons not to invest. Companies have to have a fine-tuned demand generation engine in order to connect with contacts at the top of the funnel and then have a compelling ROI and competitive advantage story in order to progress prospects to close the deal and make an investment in this climate.

3.       What are three metrics that B2B marketers should care about and why?
As I mentioned earlier, I think conversion rates at each phase of the funnel from inquiry to qualified lead and then handoff to sales will be critical to success. Marketers are going to need to benchmark their progression rates against established best practices and establish goals to improve at each phase. Ultimately that will pay dividends in the revenue and closed deals. There are probably four to five different metrics specific to the funnel  I’d suggest looking at, rather than only three.

4.      What are the top oversights marketers are making regarding lead generation?
One of the most common mistakes I see is overlooking the importance of the contact database. The old phrase “garbage in, garbage out” is especially true in lead generation. If you don’t have a solid data base of current and accurate contacts who are the right demographics for your solution, you’ll get a lot of email bounce-backs, your telemarketing will cost you a lot more and your results will suffer.
5.       What will you prescribe to marketers to carry out effective lead generation?
Micro-manage as much as possible. Focus on data hygiene with your contact database and then look at the progression rates of each phase of the funnel to where your messaging may be missing the mark.

6. What  three Web 2.0 applications,  cutting-edge technologies, or lead-generation sources do marketers HAVE to consider to be successful?
I think we’ve gotten to the point where a marketing automation system is a must-have. I have seen too many examples where high-growth companies have a significant lead over the pack because they have more intelligence on prospect behavior and they know the optimal path to progress prospects through the funnel.

There are a lot of intelligent database tools I would recommend — such as Demandbase, ZoomInfo and Reachforce — which really enable marketing and sales to have smarter touches with prospects. These tools have proven to really accelerate the engagement process in B2B.

Then I would suggest looking at any ROI tools, such as calculators or assessment tools, which help in the later stages of the funnel.

7.    What do you hope for in b2b sales and marketing for the new year?
I’d like to see the maturity and skill sets around demand generation continue to progress. Sophisticated companies are realizing it’s no longer just about getting random contacts to complete registration forms, its aligning sales and marketing processes to accelerate the buying cycle of targeted prospects.

And I’d love to see the economy start to turn so budgets loosen up and we can all start focusing on growth again.

Craig Rosenberg is the Funnelholic. He loves sales, marketing, and things that drive revenue. Follow him on Google+ or Twitter

Filed Under: b2b Marketing, Business Musings, Direct Marketing, DRIP and Lead Nurturing, Funnels, Lead Qualification, Marketing Automation, Thought Leadership Tagged With: , ,

Fusing the Loop Between Marketing and Sales: Thought Leadership Interview #18 with Matthew Quinlan of LoopFuse

May 7, 2009 by 6 Comments

I first looked into LoopFuse because it seemed like all the open source companies use them for the marketing automation.  They are an up-and-comer in the ever-competitive marketing automation space — seriously, they’re dominating the open source space marketers.

For this interview, we have Matt Quinlan, VP of field operations at LoopFuse.  Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to expect with LoopFuse being new to the game, but the interview turned out great!  It’s a good read that offers some new perspectives.

Good job Matt!

1.  What are the three trends you see emerging in 2009?

Marketing departments are being held accountable for not only leads and opportunities, but for revenue as well.  By aligning the goals of sales and marketing we will see better cooperation between the departments and avoid the finger-pointing exercises of years past. CMOs will be carrying a revenue quota just like the VP of sales.

Another interesting trend is the continued decline of the traditional “enteprise sales” model for software.  The days of software salespeople jumping on a plane upon first contact are fading quickly.  Many B2C companies have been taking the salesperson out of the process for years, first with mail-order, then kiosks and finally e-commerce.  B2B companies are also trying to generate more revenue with fewer salespeople with frictionless business models that enable prospects to engage in the evaluation and buying process with minimal assistance.  This is especially true for SaaS (Software as a Service) providers like Google Apps, Salesforce.com and Quickbooks Online.  The fewer phone calls, emails, site visits and demos per sale, the lower the cost of sales and the fatter the margin for the company.

While this last trend is somewhat self-serving, I really believe that marketing automation will become a unquestioned standard in any B2B company.  While it took CRM a decade or more to be considered “table stakes,” this will happen within three years for marketing automation.  The question will no longer be, “Should we?” but rather, “Which one?”  Personally, this realization is what led me to join LoopFuse.

2.  What are the biggest challenges for 2009?

Social media has become a very trendy for business this year. Companies are claiming their trademark usernames on Twitter and Facebook to provide another avenue to reach their audience. While social media has created dozens of these new outlets, the headcount in marketing has not increased and tweeting, blogging, Digging, commenting, posting and RSS reading all take significant time and effort. How do you monitor, engage and manage all of these outlets? The organizations that are most successful at leveraging social media will be those who figure out how to use the toolsets that surround these outlets.  For example, here are 800+ tools just for Twitter.

Marketers are also required now to be master statisticians to correctly interpret all of the metrics that they collect and report. While this has been standard practice in B2C marketing, it may be unfamiliar territory for for many B2B marketers. For example, how many data points are required to be considered a statistically valid sampling? Too small and you will chase your tail trying to adapt to the direction of the wind. Too large and you won’t notice the changing currents inside the ocean. Which “averages” should be calculated as medians versus arithmetic means? Apply the wrong calculation and you may mislead your board with flawed guidance based on data skewed by a tiny number of extreme datapoints. While many of us remember these concepts from our school days, the proper application of these principles is critically important and certainly not trivial.

3.  What are three metrics that B2B marketers should care about and why?

I’ve always been fascinated by fad diets. Physiologists and dieticians have understood the metabolic processes of the human bodies for decades. Calories that are consumed and not burned are stored as fat.  But the majority of dieters continue to follow fad diets that count sugars, fats, carbs, and now something they call the “glycemic index.” But all of those are simply proxies for measuring (or mis-measuring) the true underlying element: calories!

Demand generation metrics are somewhat like diets.  Marketing automation technology enables us to collect so many statistics that we sometimes get enamored with the “proxy metrics” such as lead volume, opportunity volume, cost per lead, cost per opportunity, instead of measuring the true end-goal: revenue.  The biggest challenge with measuring proxies of revenue instead of revenue is that the quality of leads and opportunities vary widely based on the lead source.  Even if two lead sources net the same number of opportunities, the quality of those resulting opportunities (average price, close rate, time-to-close, etc.) are not necessarily equal.  Measuring numbers of leads or opportunities instead of dollars is especially misleading if your deal sizes vary greatly.

My favorite metric for allocating marketing budgets across lead generation activities is revenue per cost per lead source (for “mature” leads).  Constantly monitor the efficiency of each lead source (buying pay-per-click ads, trade show booths, Webinars, third party lists, etc.) and shift spending from the less-efficient sources to the more-efficent sources. Efficiency means for every dollar spent on lead source A, how many dollars do are collected? Of course, this calculation must only consider “mature” leads from that source, meaning those who have been in the system long enough to have converted into revenue.

While the concept behind this metric is simple, the implementation requires dilligence. Soft costs must be included in the “cost” element because while blogging doesn’t have the hard costs of sponsoring a trade-show, it can be a huge investment of time and effort.  In order to exclude “young” leads from consideration, the average time from first-contact to close must be calculated and then two standard deviations added, which would provide 95 percent of the leads who will close enough time to do so (I told you statistics would be important going forward).

Also accept that you are measuring a model which only approximates the actual. By definition, this means that there will be outliers which will not conform to the model and seem to invalidate it. However, the goal should not be to achieve the absolute pinnacle of efficiency but rather to constantly refine our allocation of resources to improve our efficiency when compared with yesterday, last week, last month, last quarter and last year.

While this primary metric will measure how effective your marketing dollars are being spent, you also need to monitor the progress of your leads through your sales process so that you can identify and remove barriers that prevent or delay leads from moving through the funnel smoothly. Specifically, measure the percentage of leads from stage A to stage B and then stage B to stage C, etc. It is helpful to view this data in both absolute percentages (percentage of total leads that made it to stage D) and relative percentages (what percent of the leads that made it to stage C then made it to stage D). Also, measure the time required to move between stages in both absolute terms (days from first contact to stage C) and relative terms (days from stage C to stage D). Looking at these two metrics statically will help to identify the potential roadblocks in your funnel, but to measure your success in removing those roadblocks you will need to plot those two metrics over time and see if the progression of leads through your funnel has improved as a result of your efforts.

4.  What are the top oversights marketers are making regarding lead generation?

A lot of marketers still cling to the notion that by making online form fields required, they will get more data. While it may result in more data, it most certainly results in lower quality data. Is a database full of “asdf@asdf.com” email addresses and titles of “Oh Captain my Captain” providing more value than blanks? Even if you require a validation link to be sent via email it’s really only marginally better results because everyone in 2009 has at least one spam account that they only use for registrations. Resist the temptation to make your Web form fields required. Your data will be more accurate and valuable as a result.

5.  What will you prescribe to marketers to carry out effective lead generation?

As marketers, we all have a neverending list of projects that are supposed to either generate new leads or improve the close ratio of the leads we get into the funnel. However, specifically in the case of marketing automation, some of those projects need to be set up as recurring calendar appointments instead of one-time events. Yes, lead scoring rules have been defined to enable us to distinguish between a qualified lead and the casual browser. And yes, lead-nurturing programs have been defined that continuously nudge leads along the funnel.

However, scoring models and nurturing programs are both highly organic. They need to be measured and refined on a continuous basis to ensure that they are providing the intended value. It’s an evolutionary process that must adapt to internal changes (maybe you’ve added new product lines, changed your Web site, added a blog) and exteral (e.g. new competitors). Even if nothing changes, the refinements and improvements you make are magnified across the entire lead database. I was talking with a customer today that has 80,000 leads in his database. Making a small improvement in lead scoring that identified just 1 percent more qualified leads in the database results in 800 more qualified leads! Don’t fall into the trap of postponing your scoring and nurturing refinement indefinitely. It should be done at least every quarter just like rebalancing your investment portfolio. Failing to do either of these will put a serious dent in your wallet.

6.  What three Web 2.0 applications, cutting-edge technologies or lead generation sources do marketers HAVE to consider to be successful?

I’m always amazed to learn that more of us aren’t leveraging RSS to its full capability. Almost every piece of information you wish to consume is now available via RSS, and if it’s not you can convert it to RSS using Xfruits, Feed43  or Dapper. Funnel content about your organization, your competitors, your industry into a high quality RSS reader like Google Reader (learn the keyboard shortcuts). You should be continuously monitoring cyberspace for mentions of your organization, your competitors, influencers in your space and key terms. The conversations relevant to your company or product(s) are happening out there, if only you will listen.

7.  What do you hope for in B2B sales and marketing for the new year?

I hope to see more CEOs integrating the sales and marketing departments into a single unit. In today’s economic climate, organizations simply cannot afford to have their sales and marketing teams pointing fingers at each other.

Craig Rosenberg is the Funnelholic. He loves sales, marketing, and things that drive revenue. Follow him on Google+ or Twitter

Filed Under: b2b Marketing, Marketing Automation, Thought Leadership

Helping SMBs Convert Leads Actively: Thought Leadership Interview #17 with Active Conversion’s Fred Yee

May 5, 2009 by 1 Comment

Today’s interview is with Fred Yee, the CEO of Active Conversion, another player in the marketing automation game. But let me be clear: It’s not a new one. Active Conversion has been around awhile. I like that the company is trying to focus on helping SMBs (small to medium-sized businesses), who, let’s be honest, need help.

Yee has been at it for awhile and is a really smart guy both about the industry and about Active Conversion’s target market: SMBs. Active Conversion has seen an incredible upsurge in orders, so I thought it was time for Fred to talk to my audience.

Enjoy the interview:

1.    What are the three trends you see emerging in 2009?

  • The movement toward measuring marketing results more. This has resulted in less budget for TV and print in B2B marketing budgets, as they aren’t easily measurable. With marketing reduced by up to 40 percent for some industries, this has driven a trend where “spray and pray” is no longer as acceptable.
  • B2B demand gen has become sought after, as qualified leads appear more important than straight branding. 2009 is a year to get more sales, rather than do more marketing such as trade shows.
  • Many companies are looking to marketing automation as a way to optimize their marketing dollars and sales time — to survive, not just to grow market share.

2.    What are the biggest challenges for 2009?

In this economic environment, it’s the fortitude to invest rather than just stay under cover with their heads down. Although it’s easy to hunker down, the challenge is to have the courage to look for opportunities to recover lost business by getting new sales and likely market share. Someone said the other day, the strong will get stronger in this economy. Sometimes being strong means having courage.

3.    What are three metrics that B2B marketers should care about and why?

  • How much business is coming from leads directly generated by visits to their Web site
  • Incremental growth in their in-house email lists
  • How much traffic they’re getting to their Web site

The global village is more real today than ever. To do well, B2Bs have to access a global market, and have to do it with less sales resources than ever. Fortunately marketing tools and online marketing/advertising make it easier and less expensive. Those that don’t adapt will have a hard time competing.

4.    What are the top oversights marketers are making regarding lead generation?

If they are doing it the old way because that’s the way they’ve always done it, they may be in for a rude awakening. Today’s lead generation has to be measurable, qualified (scored) and “always on.” And they must auto-nurture those leads for sales. All those newspapers, yellow pages and other media companies that are struggling, are struggling for a reason — the old way is broken.

5.    What will you prescribe to marketers to carry out effective lead generation?

Find and use online tools to make the move to the Web and to make online work for you. I don’t mean just marketing automation like ActiveConversion, but email like Vertical Response, sales tools like Jigsaw and online advertising tools like Google (and Tippit).

6.    What three Web 2.0 applications, cutting-edge technologies or lead generation sources do marketers HAVE to consider to be successful?

  • Email marketing – its Web 1.5 but a staple for B2B
  • Contextual online advertising like search, content and social media
  • Marketing automation platform to tie it all together– like Active Conversion

7.    What do you hope for in B2B sales and marketing for the new year?

That they find low-cost and low-risk ways of implementing these strategies as soon as possible. I’ve been in B2B sales and marketing for what seems like forever, and trust me, once you do it this way, you won’t go back. More importantly though, it will make you and your company successful. Without it, you risk being passed by your competitors.

Craig Rosenberg is the Funnelholic. He loves sales, marketing, and things that drive revenue. Follow him on Google+ or Twitter

Filed Under: b2b Sales, Lead Qualification, Lead/Inquiry Generation, Thought Leadership