The Funnelholic

Here we are again. If you missed Part I, make sure to read it first. Once again, before we begin, I need to introduce the members of the band:

On the guitar, Tom Scearce (@TLOTL), and on the electric keyboard, Chris Jablonski (@cjablonski).

I can say this, we had a lot of fun. Check out numbers 37-49. @TLOTL has some great ones.

25.  Cold calling: I really have no idea why I put this on here. It’s pretty simple: You pick up the phone and call someone who has no idea you are calling. In today’s day and age, this is best left to professionals — a.k.a., outsourced.

26.  Contacts: Just names. The contact movement has been brought upon us by breakthrough companies such as Jigsaw, demandbase and NetProspex. These are not leads, even if these companies market them as such. Contact purchasing is a critical component to push marketing (see below).

27.   Leads: A lead is a person who has opted in for an offer (see below). As mentioned above, a contact is not a lead.

28.   Offer: An offer can be defined as “something” someone has opted-in for. These can be discrete offers such as white papers, webinars and podcasts. They can also be an appointment with a sales person.

29.   Lead generation: Activities designed to create leads.

30.   Demand generation: All the activities designed to create demand. Not just lead generation, which is part of it. Everything — including things like PR, speaking engagements, advertising, discounts or special offers and so on and so on. BTW, this is an interesting point of conversation — check out some of the answers to this on Focus.com.

31.    Lead nurturing: A process that uses content (offers, tools, white papers, etc.) and distribution tactics (email, phone, Web, etc.) to market to leads over time until they are measurably ready to engage. This one was hard. I got some terrific definitions from experts on Focus.com.

32.   Remarkable content: You need to develop this every day, and you know it’s remarkable if people can apply it right away. You need to deliver on three characteristics: 1) value: create substantive, meaningful and high-quality content and 2) efficiency: package for simplicity and ease of consumption; 3) relevance: target buyers and address their specific challenges. (@cjablonski)

33.   Push marketing: “Knocking on someone’s door.” In other words, using outbound marketing tactics such as email, phone and direct mail to market to contacts in order to create leads. Examples are outsourced appointment setting and email campaigns to a list.

34.   Pull marketing: As opposed to push marketing, “getting people to walk into your store.” Pull means you are using SEO, paid search, etc. to attract people who are searching for something you offer. It also includes getting people to look at your products in other stores through online media and white paper syndication, for example. Because not all buyers are walking into your store, you need to make sure you are represented in other stores that attract your type of buyer.

35.   Landing page: A Web page with a call-to-action to download an offer, such as a webinar, a white paper, and so on. In order to download the offer, the user has to fill out a form. (@cjablonski)

36.  Direct mail: The act of sending a marketing offer via the U.S. Postal Service, FedEx, and so on. This is a dying lead-generation tool. NOTE: there are marketers who believe direct mail still works despite the cost and low conversion rates. My suggestion is that, if you don’t do it now, don’t start.

37.  Return on contribution: Anyone who takes the time and energy to create remarkable content needs to also invest time in managing return on contribution. This can mean several things: 1) crowd-sourcing the content to leverage the friends and followers of the contributors for added distribution; 2) syndicating your content through targeted media properties; 3) engaging in online conversations where your content can be delivered in a relevant context ; and 4) leveraging your content across multiple campaigns, including lead-nurturing programs. (@TLOTL)

38.  Micro-marketed content: The opposite of mass-marketed content. An unmediated, free-flowing discussion among genuine experts in a niche category (e.g., this discussion on Focus.com) is often more relevant and helpful to buyers than a banner ad or an industry trade publication. (@TLOTL)

39.  “Multi-channel, multi-touch”: The mantra of any successful pipeline/revenue generation program. Email, Web and phone are all integrated and response-measured (scored) using marketing automation services. (@TLOTL)

40.  The “three legged stool”: In direct marketing, results are usually, ultimately, a function of the:

• List (or audience)
• Offer
• Creative

Underperform in any one of these areas and the stool falls over. (@TLOTL)

41.  The revenue/sausage factory: A useful metaphor for helping the uninitiated understand how the marketing and sales team work together to drive the top line. The factory can include “upstream” suppliers like Google, direct mail programs or demand-gen agencies. And it can also encompass post-sales “revenue recognition” functions like professional services and account management. (@TLOTL)

42.  Pipeline erosion rate: Your sales team converts your leads into pipeline deals. They win some, they lose some. Some deals roll into next month/quarter. Some don’t. The erosion rate measures the lost pipeline value that must be replaced through incremental demand-gen efforts and budget. (@TLOTL)

43.   Rotting lead rate: The percentage of leads that go untouched by sales (no email, call or voicemail) before they start to “rot.” Keep in mind that the goal is not necessarily a 0% “rot-rate.” In some cases, it’s totally ok for sales to let leads “rot.” If sales has warmer leads to work, marketing can take back the leads that would otherwise rot and nurture them until they are ready. (@TLOTL)

44.  Funnel jockey: The demand-generation expert in every successful marketing department who understands his or her funnel well enough to hard-wire the entire revenue manufacturing process, from marketing spend, to lead gen, to pipeline creation and booked revenue. This person is one of the Excel users in the marketing department who is most likely to have a working command of functions like VLOOKUP, GETPIVOTDATA, SUMPRODUCT, and RAND. (@TLOTL)

45.  Campaign Sorcerer: Describes a marketer who can quickly articulate and illustrate campaign concepts with a unique and integrated skill set that includes design aesthetics, copywriting/storyboarding, program logistics, and schedule visualization. A Powerpoint/Keynote Magic User proficient in spell-casting with SnagIt and Photoshop. (@TLOTL)

46.  Market whisperer: The agency-side marketer who can, in 30 minutes or less, figure out the essence of a client’s marketing and sales challenges, with minimal to no briefing from said client, consulting only Twitter, Google, Wordpress and Michael Porter’s Five Forces model. This marketer is more likely than his or her peers to get away with wearing ironic tee shirts or quirky, comment-worthy eyewear/accessories. (@TLOTL)

47.  Tweeps: Twitter + Peeps = Tweeps. (@TLOTL)

48.  Product myopia: Outdated marketing thinking still practiced by many who engage with prospects and clients through the lens of their own solutions. (@cjablonski)

49.  Trapping the chicken in the courtyard: A semi-obscure “Rocky II” reference/metaphor describing the relentless and often frustrating pursuit of repeatable marketing and sales success. “I feel like a Kentucky Fried idiot.” — Rocky Balboa (@TLOTL)

50.  Buyer engagement: Your goal anytime a buyer comes into contact with you. To get their full attention and immerse them into a brand experience, make sure everything you do is valuable and differentiated. (@cjablonski)

Below are SiriusDecisions definitions I have included because they have done an amazing job of getting marketers to use their methodology and lingo. This is for the other marketers who aren’t Sirius trained and want to talk the talk (I chose the three most used terms)

51.  MQL (Marketing qualified lead): Prospects defined by your marketing and sales organization as someone ready to pass to sales. They’re instrumental in calculating lead gen metrics, such as marketing qualified lead rate (# of MQLs/# of total marketing contacts).

52.  SAL (Sales accepted lead): A lead that has met the basic tenets of qualification and that sales has agreed to engage. (@cjablonski)

53.  SQL (Sales qualified lead): A prospect confirmed by sales as a true revenue opportunity and entered into the pipeline. (@cjablonski)

I wrote an article on my view of the SEO world titled “You Can’t Fade the 20 Wisemen.” The premise behind my article is the contention that there is a small cabal of real SEOs that actually “do” SEO, and there are a bunch of others who are just out there thinking they are doing it, but really aren’t. My key theme is that whatever the common SEO or marketing person is doing for SEO is probably old news.  The real SEOs, or “wisemen,” have moved on. They don’t even call it SEO anymore — it’s the Competitive Internet to you. Thank you. Now they are kicking the rest of our asses in the social media world as well.

So, I wanted to write about this, but I needed the right analogy.  Here were the three ideas I tossed out:

1. Sopranos/Mafia Analogy — overdone.  While the secret society and the untimely deaths make a lot of sense for me, I just feel like that’s not unique enough of a topic for my post to be interesting.
2. The Matrix — I loved thinking about representing the marketing/seo everyman going about what they are doing not realizing they are in this netherworld, but I am not smart enough to make some of the other moving pieces of that movie work for me. Also, the internet is full of Matrix fans who would undoubtedly assail me for some bad quote, etc.
3. Reincarnate the Wisemen — I did really love that analogy.  The Wisemen refers to the 4 guys in the restaurant in the movie “Training Day.”  While everyone else in LA ran around doing their day-to-day business, everything went through the Four Wisemen and you didn’t know it.  But I can’t pull it off again because 1) I would be doing it again and 2) they play a brief role in the movie and I couldn’t really get any more in depth.

Where did I end up? Poker… Yes, it’s a fad and a cliché, but that’s what makes it perfect. Since the World Series of Poker on ESPN (and numerous amateur million-dollar victories) and the advance of online gaming, people have been jumping on the bandwagon in droves and calling themselves poker players, or even “professional” poker players for that matter.

What made poker the perfect analogy was the fact that while ALL these people are out there playing poker, there are really very few pros.  These guys think the World Series is kiddy games where they watch you, wait for you and then take your money on the cash tables at the Mirage.  This is the perfect setting — a bunch of people who think they know what they are doing and a small handful that really do.  In the world of Competitive Internet, there is a limited group of true pros and if you’re not in these guys’ loop, you are out. This is fact.

So, I decided to bite an old article written by one of my favorite online writers Bill Simmons, who wrote a great Rounders and Roundball article in his Page 2 section of ESPN.com and use the movie “Rounders” as an analogy to the real world of the Competitive Internet.

“All the luck in the world isn’t gonna change things for these guys. They’re simply overmatched. We’re not playing together, but we’re not playing against each other, either. It’s like the Nature Channel. You don’t see piranhas eating each other, do you?”

This quote is the essence of the article: a completely appropriate representation of the Competitive Internet today. Mike McDermott, our main character, is at the Mirage with his poker crew. They are all poker sharks waiting for their prey. The sharks represent the Competitive Internet wisemen or masters, while the other guys coming to sit at the table are the online marketing managers trying to “do SEO” with the help of a “For Dummies” book or data gleaned from Marketing Sherpa (still my favorite site, don’t worry, but you know what I am talking about).  The Competitive Internet guys know each other, they try to kick each other’s ass, but they will collaborate and will often times make side deals with each other to go take down some revenue or complete a project.

“Why does this still seem like gambling to you? I mean, why do you think the same five guys make it to the final table of the World Series of Poker EVERY SINGLE YEAR? What, are they the luckiest guys in Las Vegas? It’s a skill game, Jo.”

Look the Competitive Internet is skill, but these guys test a lot before they find out what works, so this quote really works for me.  Mike McDermott’s girlfriend is calling poker “lucky.” Above is McDermott’s indignant response.  Like McDermott, the Competitive Internet guys believe they are all skill and they are right the majority of the time … but there is a big luck factor too as most of their discoveries of inefficiencies or Internet tells are the product of throwing things against the wall and hoping things stick.

“ ‘Y’have it?’ he asks me. ‘Sorry John, I don’t remember.’ I got up and walked straight to the cashier’.”

Amazing scene and totally contrived. Nonetheless, in this scene, McDermott sits down with Johnny Chan, one of the world masters in Poker and bluffs his way to winning a pot.  When Chan asks him if he’s got it, McDermott tosses the cards and replies with the quote above. If you know a true Competitive Internet master, then you know how this goes. They will talk exploits, money, sex, gambling, girls, but then you talk about HOW they got 300 links in two hours or a key business search term onto the first page of Google organic, and you get radio-silence. They “don’t remember” (read: will never tell you and probably won’t tell their mothers).

“Listen, here’s the thing. If you can’t spot the sucker in your first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker”

Guess what, my boy Brian Provost (read him at Scoreboard Media) can sniff a rat by an email you send, the questions you ask or your moves on the Internet whether in PPC, SEO, anything. He knows if you are worthy or not very quickly.

“No, 15 grand in five days, I can do that. I’ve gone on runs like that before.”

This quote is about runs, and certainly CI boys go on runs. When they find a hole, they beat the hell out of it until the opportunity dries up and they move on. Their mortgage lead runs of a couple years ago were epic money-making efforts. (Pop quiz: who made the most off sub-prime and never had to talk the regulators?)

“You know what cheers me up when I’m feeling [expletive]? Rolled up aces over kings. Check-raising stupid tourists and taking huge pots off of them. Playing all-night high-limit hold’em at the Taj, where the sand turns to gold. Stacks and towers of checks I can’t even see over.”
“[Expletive] it, let’s go.”
“Don’t tease me.”
“Let’s play some [expletive] cards”

Juxtaposed with:

“You keep grinding out that rent money, Joe. It’s noble work you’re doing.”

Competitive Internet guys, the real ones, the wisemen, they are not suited for 9-5 work, driving the aerostar, and paying the mortgage.  They are swashbucklers, gamblers, night-owls (like Magic-the Gathering type guys). If you are trying to figure out if you know a CI ninja, see if he is on IM at 3am with four screens going — 1) Making money in credit card PPC; 2) moving a legitimate site up in organic rankings; 3) working on the latest viral campaign to hit the social networks; and 4) Pickem: Partypoker, espn, porn …They don’t grind, they go for big wins.

Had to put this in, I get pumped on this quote in the movie.

“The judges’ game. I’d heard about it for years on the street, before I was even in law school. A rotating group of ten or twelve judges, prosecutors, and professors. They all have money, and in my playing days it would have been pretty sweet to have any one of them owing me favors. Only problem is, no one can get in the game anymore. One rounder, Crispy Linetta, sat under some pretense, but when they found out he was a pro, he couldn’t cross the street without a legal hassle. Even his regular club, Vorshay’s, got shut down. Place’d been open since 1907.”

The Competitive Internet guys are constantly trolling for new places to fish — e.g., they are looking for inefficiencies all over the Internet.  They aren’t hackers, and the ones I respect are not illegal, but they know a sucker when they see one.

“In Confessions of a Winning Poker Player, Jack King said, ‘Few players recall big pots they have won — strange as it seems — but every player can remember with remarkable accuracy the outstanding tough beats of his career.’ Seems true to me, ’cause walking in here I can hardly remember how I built my bankroll, but I can’t stop thinking how I lost it.”

That damn Google Algorithm.  The best guys get slammed by Google. It’s a way of life. When they make changes to algorithm, it’s like you played the hand perfectly and someone beats you on the river. When Google makes changes, Competitive Internet guys face “bad-beats.”

The oldest link-building trick in the book is the “best of” list. But this is not merely a link-building exercise. Actually, I have been dying to write this for a while. Since I have started the blog, I have found places on the Web to gather ideas and have had a chance to really think about the people that have given me the foundation for my ideology.

Continue Reading »

Here is what I have learned in my three year crash course in internet lead generation:

• I used to think there were alot of people doing SEO
• Then I met Brian Provost, and I found out there are like 20 dudes in the world who can truly win at the art of SEO’ing
• These dudes all know eachother, they are like the “3 Wise Men” in Training Day but there are twenty of them, they spend more time colluding via IM than eating in dark LA restaurant, and are all under 40 and millionaires.
• Tom Berenger was one of the “3 Wisemen”
• I work with Brian and read his blog all the time and have fun
• The tricks common SEO’rs do today were invented by the “20 Wisemen” years ago and they are doing stuff now you wouldn’t believe
• If you are not one of the “20 Wise Men”, you are a common SEO’r - sorry. You may be able to rank for an obscure keyword, but if you had to go heads up with one of these guys — they would win
• They have to play offense and defense against Google, Digg, and the rest of the internet 24/7
• Brian will likely let me know there are more than 20 wisemen