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Archive for Marketing Campaigns

Campaign Workflow – Map the Process Before Hitting Send

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Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

Steven Covey says to ‘begin with the end in mind.’ Another saying is ‘set the goal and the how-to’s will reveal themselves.’ When building a campaign strategy and implementing individual campaigns, mapping the workflow for each step is critical to ensure solid customer connections at the right time and with the right information.

Don’t Let Workflow Tedium Scare You

Marketing campaign development can be tactically tedious with multiple steps that have “if X happens then Y” and on and on.  Regardless of how tedious, building the right campaign workflow is just as important as clear messaging and a solid offer.  A campaign with the best creative and messaging will fail with a well planned and tested workflow.  A marketing automation solution helps marketing teams develop and execute campaign workflows.  Of course some campaigns may have more extensive workflow than others.

Here are some workflow considerations for building an email and web marketing campaign.  (This list is not intended to be exhaustive.)

Who are you contacting?

  • Prospects
  • Existing customers

How are you contacting them?

  • Email
  • PPC Search
  • Social media
  • Seminar
  • Survey

What kind of response/conversion is required?

  • Complete forms on hypersites
  • Complete forms on homepage
  • Register for event

How much information is required?

  • First and last name
  • Company
  • Email
  • Phone
  • Title
  • Project information

What happens when a nurtured contact responds with new contact information or more contact information than previously provided?

  • Update contact record
  • Update previously blank fields
  • Etc.

How is the promo content delivered?

  • Landing page
  • Hypersite
  • Email confirmation

When is the lead “qualified” and “sales-ready” for direct follow up?

What happens to “disqualified” leads?

What happens to email addresses that “bounce”?

  • Soft bounce monitor
  • Hard bounce deletion

How are email unsubscribe requests processed?

These are just some of the steps to consider with your marketing campaign workflow.  Again, this is not an complete listing but hopefully provides ideas and considerations for mapping your campaigns.  Marketing automation systems are ideal for building and managing all levels of sophistication of campaign workflow.  Marketing automation also provide incredibly valuable information for measuring campagns.

To ensure campaign success, make sure to map the process BEFORE hitting send.

Additional Resources

Categories : Email Marketing, Marketing Automation, Marketing Campaigns, Marketing Operations, Strategic Marketing
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Email Contact Governance with Marketing Automation

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Thursday, April 8th, 2010

I recently wrote about the importance of Contact Cadence when developing and implementing a customer marketing campaign strategy.  The benefits of contact cadence ensure a database of customers will receive the right information at the right time without being exhausted by excessive and uncoordinated communications.

Complementary to cadence is Email Contact Governance.  This is the series of people and policies that determine who, how, what and when customers and prospects can be contacted using marketing automation systems.  (Please note: Governance is not intended to restrict sales contact!  Sales managers and reps may initially interpret this means they can’t make calls or appointments.  Not so!!)

Email Contact Governance is especially critical for companies that have multiple business units that run independent campaigns.  In the era of confederated business units and executives who desire to “cross-sell” and “up-sell” to other business unit customers, companies head into the dangerous territory of uncoordinated spamming and damaged customer relationships.  (In some countries and U.S. states this may even be illegal email contact which is another topic in itself.) An effective Email Contact Governance Policy and Team can actually help strengthen customer relationships and support contact cadence with a campaign strategy.

Who – The Team

  • Corporate Executive Sponsor
  • Corporate Governance Lead – the one throat to choke!
  • Assigned Marketing Automation Pros (in the necessary business units)
  • Business Unit Lead/Manager
  • Sales Operations Lead
  • Legal
  • Channel Partner Leads
  • THE CUSTOMER – provide a symbolic seat at the table to keep the focus on how to best communicate with the customer!!

When – The Coordination Plan

  • Corporate Communications Calendar coordinated with Business Unit Marketing Automation Pros
  • Campaign Calendar Coordination
  • Authorized Communications – who can send information and how often
  • Team Communication – The team lead should keep everyone on the same plan and regularly review changes

What – The Content

  • Opt-In or Opt-Out Profiles:  Give your leads and customers the information they want.
  • Don’t send emails to contacts who specifically opt-out of the options provided.
  • Send consistently planned and remarkably executed email to those that Opt-In.

Worst-Case Scenario: Mojito Manufacturer, Inc. conducts a strategically important annual customer event.  The corporate communications team promotes each event up to a year in advance beginning at the current event.  Communication frequency via email increases as the date approaches.  Business units also run their own event communications independent of corporate often duplicating or triplicating the emails sent to customer contacts.  This is where the worlds collide!  Combine this activity with planned email campaigns and throw in 3rd party channel and chaos ensues!  Sales managers scream at marketing managers that customers are complaining of too many emails.  Believe it or not this is quite common!

Ideas to Consider:

  • Corporate teams should provide content for business units to include in their planned communications and vice versa.
  • Authorizations – limit who can send campaign or corporate email using authorizations in marketing automation systems.  (This should NOT limit direct 1:1 email from sales reps, support, etc.)
  • Send the right corporate/campaign information to the right contacts at the right time based on profiles and opt-in information.
  • Don’t rely on email alone for customer communications
  • Use multiple channels, including social media
  • Customer Perspective: Think about how you would want to be contacted!

What are your experiences, lessons learned and best practices?

Categories : Contact Governance, Demand Generation, Marketing Automation, Marketing Campaigns, Marketing Communications, Marketing Operations
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Extend Your Marketing Campaigns with Social Media

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Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

I work with marketing colleagues every week in businesses of all shapes and sizes who try to distinguish the hype from the reality when using social media with customer marketing campaigns.  Sadly the marketing ethos is loaded with “social media gurus” and “experts” who offer little more than gimmicks for MLM marketing and Google adwords campaigns while professing the need to “tell stories” in order to engage customers.  (Insert gag reflex here)  Typically these self-described experts don’t work to understand the voice of the customer or identify the objectives and goals and the strategy to achieve them. Don’t abandon sound planning by randomly throw spaghetti on the wall to see what sticks! (I recently wrote about Desired Outcomes and the SOSTAC method for effective planning and execution.)

A Model Worth Trying – Using Social Media to Support Marketing Campaigns

I recently implemented a high performing B2B social media and web campaign strategy for a B2B technology company which effectively extended e-mail campaigns and a newly branded web site.  These campaigns were automated and integrated with a CRM system and metrics were captured using a BI tool and Google Analytics.

The objectives were to re-connect with a large and passionate global community of customers and partners.  The supporting goals were to increase overall organic search performance, web site traffic, and lead conversion rates for annual campaigns and nurturing programs.  The expectations were high but achievable.  A critical strategic component of the overall plan was extending the web site site with focused and manageable social media channels which included a Facebook Group, Twitter page, YouTube channel and a blog that provided high value content for a specific customer segment.

Following the strategic campaign calendar, we structured the social media channels to support campaigns in this manner:

1.  Campaign Landing Pages: Campaign Theme and Content Toolkit that provided free downloads for basic content or required forms for higher value content.

2. Website: The homepage had a specific section dedicated to promoted the latest campaign with compelling content and a call to action.

3. Blog: Provided high-value content that described a real world application of the technology solution which may include best practices or a customer case study.  We ALWAYS had a call to action at the end of the blog to encourage commentary or to “learn more, download our podcast/white paper/assessmeent tool, etc.

4. Twitter: Promote the latest blog entry or case study or other high value content using targeted hashtags and bit.ly links.  Bit.ly links provide a high level method for measuring click through rates.

5. Facebook Group: This was used to promote the latest content or events with direct links back to the web site or blog in order to encourage conversions and engagement.

6. YouTube Channel: For each campaign we promoted supporting content on our YouTube channel.  This was designed as high value informative content which included a call to action to visit the web site or campaign landing page.

7. Marketing Automation: The cohesive component that tied each of these channels together was the use of a marketing automation system.  We were able to measure the conversion rates on every channel from the initial email, the landing pages, blogs, web site.

We found these extra channels extended our campaign reach beyond our standard in-house and 3rd party email lists and significantly increased conversion rates.  There were a number of reasons for this:

1. Improved organic search performance. On specific keyword searches, we had more content available from multiple channels which displaced competitors deeper into search results.  More content was made available and was easier to find.
2. Contacts had more options to experience content at their pace. When they were ready to engage more directly, they would complete simple forms to reveal their identities.  Our prospects were better informed and more highly qualified when they engaged with sales.
3. More engagement based on problem solving inquiries and information sharing. Our customers, prospects, and partners engaged in different ways taking advantage of new forums and channels.  Prospects found ways to connect with us instead of only talking with a sales representative.  Our partners provided valuable information and commentary on best practices or product information.

This is basic model that can deliver results with proper planning and implementation and high value content.  I would like to hear how you extend your campaigns with social media channels.

Categories : Customer Marketing, Marketing Campaigns, Marketing Communications, Social Media, Social Media Marketing
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Marketing Campaign Planning and Execution – A Battle Proven Approach

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Thursday, March 18th, 2010

Battle-tested and successful marketers minimize the noise of randomization by planning strategically and executing brilliantly.  This is especially important with managing and executing marketing campaigns.  Campaign planning provides the entire enterprise a vision of what to expect for demand generation and awareness throughout a defined time period.  Desired outcomes and objectives are planned and agreed to.  Behaviors and expectations are aligned across departments.  The sales organization will understand the timing, target audience, and campaign messaging.  The campaign content contributors also know what content to develop and when they need to deliver.  This entire process helps avoid the dreaded peaks and valleys of lead flow.

Theories aside, here are real world ideas to help with strategic marketing campaign planning:

  • What types of campaigns?  (i.e. Demand generation or Awareness?)
  • Identify the objectives and desired outcomes for each campaign and roll up to the strategic plan.
  • Identify the target audience. (i.e. Existing customers? Technical decision makers? Business decision makers? Vertical industries?)
  • Timeframes:  monthly, quarterly?
  • Map campaigns and themes against known milestones or important events. (i.e. Major product launches; Holidays)
  • Provide a 12 month campaign calendar to the internal and partner audiences.
  • Identify the primary content contributors (i.e. Product managers, channel partners, customers, analysts) and proactively manage their contributions to allow for review, edit, and approval cycles.
  • Identify the delivery platforms and content elements. (i.e. Email, hypersites, communities, on-demand webinars, podcasts, white papers, etc.)
  • Map all content with a marketing automation system such as Manticore Technology and Eloqua and perform a pre-campaign test to ensure content quality.
  • Use the marketing automation system to monitor and measure results and make adjustments as needed.
  • Communicate in advance to internal and channel partner audiences of the impending campaign kickoff.
  • Monitor and measure sales effectiveness on lead follow up.
  • Duplicate what works.  Improve what doesn’t.
  • Celebrate success.

What has worked for you?  What hasn’t?  Let me know your thoughts!

Categories : Content Marketing, Manticore Technology, Marketing Automation, Marketing Campaigns
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Stay the Course – Messaging and Positioning Framework

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Friday, February 26th, 2010

“They’re mere guidelines…”

Messaging and positioning frameworks come in all shapes and sizes and benefit numerous varieties of organizations.   Messaging and positioning frameworks help organizations communicate a unique value proposition in a consistent manner across multiple activities and platforms. These frameworks are critical to successful strategic communications and they exponentially enhance the effectiveness of tactical activities and tools.  Campaigns, events, sales, advertising, customer service, web sites, invoicing, PR, and social media efforts can all benefit in increased effectiveness by consistently reflecting a messaging and positioning framework.

Help the Customers Help Themselves to Understand

Consistent communication helps prospective customers feel comfortable and confident in their decision steps in the buying process.  The messaging is reinforced based on each interaction point that consistently reflects the messaging and positioning.  Without a framework, what is the message?  Without a framework how can you expect customers to “get” your story? Even with the greatest product ever, no one cares if your positioning is weak.

Two Models to Try

Here are two models that work well and I have used both.  Geoffrey Moore developed a fantastic model when he published “Crossing the Chasm” which I still find useful today.  Geoffrey Moore’s classic formula structures a positioning statement like this:

“For (target customer) who (statement of the need or opportunity) the (Product name) is a (product category) that (statement of key
benefit/compelling reason to buy) unlike (primary competition) our product (statement of primary differentiation).

The next model uses three pillars and is commonly used in the software industry, especially here in the Silicon Forest.  This model works well to position a single solution with different audiences.  For example, a departmental business manager may have different interests from a CFO or an IT Director.  However, an individual product or service may solve the problems of each individual and it’s important to cater that message to them.  This model can work also well to help position a solution or product in a vertical industry. (click to enlarge.)

Messaging and Positioning Framework - 3 Pillar

How do you develop your positioning frameworks?  What are some of the models you follow?  Let me know your thoughts and feedback.

Categories : Marketing Communications, Messaging, Positioning
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Contact Cadence with Marketing Automation

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Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

Marketing automation with systems like Eloqua, Manticore Technology, Marketo, Pardot and others are like driving an amazing Ferrari, or even a powerful tractor trailer rig.  They offer fanstastic capabilites to develop new and profitable customer relationships and tools to measure marketing ROI.  With all of these capabilites comes great enthusiasm and one that must be tempered with discipline and planning.

Cadence:  “A recurrent rhythmical series”

Most parents wouldn’t let an inexperienced teenage driver at the wheel or a beautiful Italian sports car without some solid ground rules, policies, and training.  The same can be said for how organizations use marketing automation systems.  Contact Cadence is critical to make sure all of the power is used effectively and customer relationships and repuations are kept strong. (We discuss complementary Contact Governance in another blog post.)

Contact cadence is very important to measure and manage marketing campaigns throughout the course of a year.  Cadence starts with a strategic plan on implementing and using a marketing automation system.  A core component of this overall strategy is developing and managing a campaign calendar that plans contacts over the course of a year.  Who you are contacting with the right content and how often.  This helps build the proper cadence and keeps your database and relationships healthy.

Cadence Benefits: A well planned annual campaign calendar with the proper target audience lead to  increased conversion/response rates, better qualified opportunities with shorter sales cycles and strong credible relationships.  If you execute a well planned campaign schedule with high value content in measured sequences, not only will your campaigns increase in effectiveness, you may find your database contacts actually look forward to your contact.

Risks with Poor Cadence: With random, excessive and unplanned marketing campaign contact, an organization risks dramatically lowered campaign conversion rates and damaged perception.  Customer may perceive that you are simply “spamming” and not really providing high value content at the right time in their buying cycle. If you exceed  cadence with customers, they will disengage. Very simple.

Ideas for Developing Proper Cadence with Marketing Automation

  • Develop an annual campaign calendar and share with your entire organization and partner channel.
  • Segment your audience based on their needs and place in their buying cycle.  Provide the right content to the right audience at the right time.
  • Provide a balance of “free” content downloads and high value content where contacts fill out simple forms.
  • A well-planned marketing schedule allows your database “rest” to build anticipation and increase conversion rates with your next contact.

Contact cadence using a marketing automation system enables an organization to manage customer contacts and increase overall effectiveness and conversions.

Additional Resources

Categories : Eloqua, Manticore Technology, Marketing Automation, Marketing Campaigns, Marketing Operations
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