Intro | Part II
Create your nurture test roadmap
Having a roadmap discussion ensures program alignment before jumping into implementation phase. Set up a Roadmap meeting, use my template, and set an agenda. Before you do anything in Marketo, it’s important to understand the framework of your test. Get aligned on what part of the business you’re trying to impact, and who your target audience is. Here’s the template you can use to write out your testing roadmap.
What we’ll cover:
- Target audience
- Test variable
- Baseline conversion rate
- Your nurture goal
- Hypothesis
Target Audience
You won’t have a successful nurture program if the target audience is “everyone in the database.” Who will benefit most from receiving this content? The more specific the better. Ideally, it will be a larger dataset so your test will be as impactful as possible. Some examples could be: tradeshow sourced leads, Enterprise customers in the retail vertical, or prospects who signed up for a free trial.
For this post, our example target audience will be prospects created from Tradeshows.
Once you have identified who you want to target, write down the total number of people that make up this segment.
Test Variable
What are you trying to improve?
You’re not going to solve all of your business problems with one nurture. An ineffective variable is: “to get more SALs, opportunities and more customer retention. Oh, and increase product usage by 50%.” This is actually 4 variables. A nurture program’s primary goal should be an action that can happen soon after someone clicks an email.
What is the primary activity you want to drive with your nurture? Click rates? Product engagement? Demo signups? Write it down on your roadmap doc.
In this example, our variable is accounts created.
Baseline Conversion Rate
Historically, what has the conversion rate been for your target audience and your primary variable? In this example the question would be: how many trade show leads have created an account in the past?
- Using the same list of people in your target audience list, find how many of those have executed the goal you’re looking to improve
- Divide the number of leads that completed the goal by the total number of your target audience list. Then multiply by 100. That’s your baseline conversion rate.
- Your baseline conversion rate will be the number you want to *beat* with your new nurture program.
E.g. Currently 20% of our new tradeshow leads create an Optimizely account.
Nurture Goal
Here’s where you define what success looks like for your nurture program. In this example, we want to increase that conversion rate by 15%.
Hypothesis
How will this nurture program meet your goal? You’ve done most of the work already, now you just have to crystallize it.
Example: My hypothesis is that by sending a 4 touch email nurture to our tradeshow leads, they will be more likely to create an account than if they weren’t sent it. By staying top of mind after the trade show is over, leads will be curious to explore what Optimizely can offer.
Intro | Part II
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