Multichannel Marketing Metrics
with Akin

Marketing budgets have a chance to grow in 2011, writes Laura Patterson in her article in our Digital Marketing One series for the CMO.

But – not  to steal Laura’s punchline – but there is a catch:

Accountability!

I.e. marketers’ ability to prove the returns on the moneys spent.

So, what is meant by accountability?

Laura’s article is a great to read executive summary on that and includes 5 recommendations for getting it right.

Something that I liked especially well in her article is that Laura doesn’t equate accountability with just short term financial ROI. Instead, read how she emphasizes accountability “to the financial and strategic initiatives of the organization”.

Very well taken even if the strategic initiatives must of course in the long term also lead to financial ROI, unless we are talking about a socially oriented organization.

Laura’s article kicks of a mini series on articles about accountability in digital marketing. Her company, VisionEdge Marketing, specializes in enabling organizations to leverage data and analytics towards accountability and operations, and better marketing performance. You may have seen Laura speak at various conferences. She is also the author of three books including Metrics in Action: Creating a Performance Driven Marketing Organization (Racom, 29).

(click to see on Amazon)

See also VisionEdgeMarketing.com for free resources.

Tags: multichannel marketing, Multichannel Marketing Measurement, Multichannel marketing metrics by akin
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Naras Eechambadi’s article with a state of the art description of customer marketing (see previous post) completed a series of executive summaries on digital marketing techniques for the CMO:

• Ardath Albee, Content Marketing
• Robert Lesser, Lead Generation
• Chris Ryan, End-to-end, Digital Lead Management
• Steve Woods, Revenue Performance Management
• Naras Eechambadi, Maximizing Long-term Customer Value

And earlier we had gone through a series of executive summaries on digital marketing channels:

• Ted Boyd, Interactive Advertising
• Eric Enge, Search Marketing
• Alan See, Local Search
• Kim Dushinski, Mobile Marketing
• Jim Sterne, Social Media Measurement

Next up is going to be a series on marketing accountability and optimization with digital marketing.

Tags: multichannel marketing by akin
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After three posts on insights for the considered purchases sector, it is fun now to see now how different the discussion is for customer marketing amd B2C. For that, just tune into Naras Eechambadi’s’ article which is next in our Digital Marketing One series for CMOs.

It strikes you that the discussion within B2B (lead management) is all about nurturing clients in leading up to a sale. The discussion in customer marketing is about the long term relationship across many transactions and towards increasing customer value over time.

Though both camps might consider analytics driven marketing “the central hub”.

Read Naras’ article carefully though.

I am amazed how self-evidently Naras includes the ways in which customer marketing has adapted to the 2010s in his writing.

“The first step to decide whether to increase investment in your customer marketing is to measure the value of your customer base and to understand the elements that drive the value. Value can be defined in different ways in different businesses—it could be a revenue or sales measure, a profit or contribution measure or even loyalty or advocacy.”, from Naras’ article.

Hey, Naras says, it is 2011 and no longer do we need to explain nor go on and on that advocacy via social media could influence whether a client should be considered high value to the company or not.

Naras pairs these up with other statements that he takes for granted as a seasoned customer marketer but that make just about any web analyst look like an amateur and makes web analytics software look like a toy.

“Next, segment your customers based on current value as well as potential future value.“

“The best way to measure the return and to conclusively prove the effectiveness of marketing is by holding out a sample (control group) of customers [...] The deviation in values over time [between test vs control group], aggregated across the entire customer base, gives you a measure of the value created by customer marketing.”

Naras is of course not just “somebody” writing about customer marketing but has deep roots in the industry. He is the General Manager of Quaero, a CSG solution. Quaero (a Unica partner of many years) delivers multi-channel marketing solutions that help companies build long-lasting customer relationships and maximize return on investment. Naras is also the author of High Performance Marketing: Bringing Method to the Madness of Marketing (Kaplan Professional Press, 25).

Check out his contribution to the article series for digital CMOs and chime in with your own comments.

Tags: Customer Centricity, Direct Marketing, multichannel marketing by akin
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Continuing our article series for the CMO from Digital Marketing One, next is Eloqua’s Steve Woods on Revenue Performance Management (RPM).

“RPM is a systematic approach to identifying the drivers and impediments to revenue, rigorously measuring them, and then pulling the economic levers that will optimize top-line growth. Really what RPM provides is an analysis framework that allows businesses to make the right investment decisions across the entire marketing and sales spectrum.” (from Steve’s article.)

Wow, what’s not to like here.

First, analysis is at the heart of managing revenue performance in Steve’s vision. I like how he stresses dashboarding, benchmarking, and optimization as key elements in his article.

But in addition, the RPM acronym also reminds you of a car engine’s revolutions per minute. What better symbol for a high octane demand (lead) generation marketing engine!

Steve is Eloqua’s chief technology officer and cofounded the company in 1999. He is responsible for defining the technology vision at the core of Eloqua’s solutions. Earlier, he worked in corporate strategy at Bain & Company and engineering at Celestic

For more info on RPM see the cool resources published by Eloqua on their site.

Tags: multichannel marketing by akin
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Robert Lesser’s article in the DigitalMarketingOne series is stepping back from lead management and providing a great primer on lead generation in general.

Anyone in the trenches with lead gen will know just how much hard work it is. So it is very wise to approach it systematically.

Otherwise, despite all that effort, Sales and Marketing may find themselves playing the blame game, for example, because they hadn’t agreed to the definition of a valid lead before starting.

Robert was a featured speaker in the recent DigitalMarketingOne virtual summit for B2B digital marketing. Robert’s firm, Direct Impact Marketing, provides on-demand inside sales, telesales enablement tools and direct marketing services. Robert built his experience in a number of marketing positions including Dell, IBM, and others.

For more information, visit the Acquiring Minds Blog, or contact Robert Lesser on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Tags: multichannel marketing by akin
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B2B Marketing is hot hot hot.

In fact it seems to be overheating with a plethora of terms that are used to describe similar, well …, related marketing techniques.

• Lead nurturing
• Drip campaigns
• Lead qualification,
• Lead scoring
• Sales development,
• Contact management
• (B2B) Marketing automation
• etc

High time for somebody to bring order into this chaos and explain how the above fit together.

And they do all fit together, namely they are all aspects of lead management.

Thankfully, the next article in our DigitalMarketingOne series for the CMO is on lead management and comes to us by Christopher Ryan.

Chris is president of Fusion Marketing Partners. He is well known in B2B marketing with twenty-five years of marketing, technology, and senior management experience.

Wow, with 25 years looking at this it must be fun to reflect how much B2B marketing will have changed in the digital age. Digital’s knack for interactivity is just Purrrrfect for B2B. And doing digital marketing for B2B without interactivity would seem a crime today.

For additional resources on B2B marketing from Chris visit fusionmarketingpartners.com or contact the author at cryan – at – fusionmarketingpartners.com.

Tags: multichannel marketing by akin
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Now that our Digital Marketing One series for CMOs reviewed the most critical know-how for a variety of channels, the focus shifts to digital marketing techniques.

You can apply these marketing techniques across digital channels.

And the first insights that I’d like to point readers to come from writer and consultant Ardath Albee on content marketing.

To paraphrase from Ardath’s article, the best content marketers have been able to:

1. increase lead conversion rates (e.g. by 70%!!!)
2. make it more likely that leads will respond to calls
3. and – most impressive to me – increase average sales values!!

Yet,content marketers also have the Internet awash with bezillions of “Top 10 tricks” guides and bezillions of free webinars on every conceivable topic. So, it can be really, really hard to get good marketing returns on your content.

Ardath’s article provides golden advice to strategize on your content development in a systematic manner.

Ardath‘s book, eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale was recently released by McGraw-Hill. Ardath is a B2B Marketing Strategist and the CEO of her firm, Marketing Interactions, Inc. She applies her business management and marketing experience to help companies with complex sales use eMarketing strategies to generate more and better sales opportunities.

I asked Ardath recently which industries (besides B2B) benefit from content marketing. Here was her response:

All industries can find benefit from content marketing. My focus just happens to be B2B companies with complex sales that require building engagement over time with lots of education and expertise and more than one person involved in the decision. Yet, the equivalent in B2C markets would be buying a house or buying a car or even life insurance or investing for retirement or to fund your children’s college education.

An example in B2C are Baby Center’s iterative emails for new parents who need to learn a lot to raise children.

I think the difference is really in the approach and type of content selected. For example, Lego would likely do well by creating content that engages kids in what they can build, creating interactive games, contests, etc. And, I’d even bet there’s a niche out there with adults who haven’t ever given them up.

To learn more from Ardath, check out the following:

• Download two chapters of eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale
• Download the eBook, Content is Marketing Currency

Tags: Direct Marketing, Marketing Disciplines, multichannel marketing by akin
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