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By: Heidi Bullock Posted: June 6, 2016 | Modern Marketing A little over two weeks after marketers gathered at the Marketing Nation Summit in Las Vegas, a new group of savvy marketers converged in Nashville, Tennessee for three days of informative sessions, networking, and, let’s be honest, great music. As you might expect, SiriusDecisions did not disappoint. The event was packed full with new frameworks—this year, there were 30+ new models—that covered product marketing, sales, content measurement, and just about everything else you can think of. Yet, what I found to be most interesting were the key themes discussed among the great marketers that attended. If you weren’t able to make it out to Tennessee, it’s OK. Here’s a recap of some of the most talked about topics and key takeaways: Marketing Automation—It’s the Heart of the Technology Ecosystem No surprise here, there were quite a few takeaways about marketing automation as it continues to evolve over time: Beyond Demand Generation: If you read Charm Bianchini’s blog about the marketing automation predictions that came out of SiriusDecisions, you’re already familiar with the way that marketers will leverage marketing automation in the future. Marketing automation will enable marketers to extend beyond classic demand models—applying it for ABM, channel marketing, and more. Some companies have already started doing this. For example, on my team at Marketo, we use the Marketo Marketing Automation Platform not only for acquisition marketing, but also for retention, cross-sell, and advocacy marketing. Personalization Is Critical: Another key takeaway was about personalization, which speakers and marketers alike recognized as a key component to effective marketers ,while also recognizing that marketers still struggle keeping up with ‘Amazon-like’ expectations. The answer? Just get started. You don’t need to be Amazon in a day; in fact, web personalization is a great place to start if this is a new area for you. Marketing Clouds: One point that struck a chord with me was that companies need to create their own ‘clouds,’ with marketing automation as the engagement system of record. It is interesting to think how marketing automation can evolve to be the system of record for your customer and also be used across the organization to truly understand and monitor buyer activity. Data Science Impact: When the audience was polled, data science stood out as the one factor that marketers believe will affect their organization the most (48.3%), specifically in the following categories: the volume of data, having repeatable/scalable processes for data projects like reporting, identifying hand-off points with cross-departmental teams, and lastly ensuring your organization has the right people in place for these evolving roles. Account-Based Marketing—One Size Doesn’t Fit All There was a lot of discussion around account-based marketing (ABM) as a powerful marketing strategy that companies should evaluate. While ABM is definitely not a new approach, the key takeaway and discussion revolved around how the technology to support an ABM strategy is really progressing and how that makes target account marketing more scalable and measurable. Technology that helps marketing and sales align, simply and in an integrated way, is ideal. Predictive Technologies—It’s the Future Predictive was definitely popular at SiriusDecisions this year, and yet all the conversation about it highlighted to me that it still means different things to different people. Predictive analytics is being applied to lead scoring, account targeting, personas, tactics, and content matching. What predictive is and how it is being used to help marketers be more effective and efficient is very exciting and definitely an area to watch.It’s important to understand what the different companies in the space have to offer. For marketers who are already using a complete marketing automation platform that sits at the center of their marketing technology stack, like Marketo, these capabilities—whether through an partner integration or a native feature—will change how marketers listen and respond personally, in real-time. Companies to check out include Everstring, SixSense, Lattice Engines, Infer, and Mintigo. Additionally, Marketo currently offers a web personalization app that delivers personalized content to your visitors across your website, and we introduced predictive content for email as part of our product roadmap at the Marketing Nation Summit in May. MarTech Stack—Keep Calm and Be Thoughtful and Clear on Your Goals There still seems to be plenty of opportunity within MarTech for improvement. Right now, companies are approaching it piece by piece. But, it is becoming increasingly important to have connected stacks not separated by marketing, sales, and support and ‘insert hot new tech term here’ silos. I think marketers need more advice and guidance on how to think about this growing challenge. Here is one model we’ve developed to provide a simplified and practical way to think about it: Buyer’s Journey The thinking about the buyer’s journey has evolved, but the big theme at this year’s conference was about understanding your buyer throughout the organization—not just in marketing.Buyers have more information and access than ever before and marketers that can be personal, relevant, and leverage multiple channels will win. More specifically: Behavior, conversion, and engagement data will be used to determine next steps. The key is to understand personas and leverage technology to offer 1:1 relationships that scale and indicate the optimal pathway to pursue. Your Marketing Org.—It’s the Glue Lastly, the critical piece to connecting the strategy (and internal processes) with the technology and data is the most important: the people and the MINDSET of the people. Having the right organizational structure and skills, and agrowth mindset are essential for marketing teams to be successful in an environment where the only given constant is change. Did you have any other key takeaways from SiriusDecisions? If you couldn’t make it, which takeaway resonated with you and how you see the future of marketing? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Basic Nurturing Advanced Nurturing Measuring ROI Calculating the ROI of Nurturing Understanding the Engagement Dashboard Basic Reporting - (Login Required) Measuring ROI Understanding Engagement Scores Engagement Stream Performance Reports Defining Nurture How to Create a Nurturing Strategy Working with Engagement Programs (Login Required) Add Streams to Your Program Optimizing Nurture How to Test and Optimize Nurturing Engagement Engine, Scoring, and Data Management - (Login Required) Segmenting for Nurture Basic Nurturing Segmentations Segmenting for Nurture Advanced Nurture Segmentations Transition Leads Between Engagement Streams Engaging with Content How to Create Content on a Budget Content Marketing Tactical Plan Worksheet Add Content to a Nurture Stream Nurturing Across Channels Your Multi-Channel Nurturing Strategy

By: Renata Bell Posted: May 31, 2016 | Targeting and Personalization Yesterday, I received an email from a retailer suggesting that I purchase a product I already bought last month. Don’t they know me by now?! It’s amazing how we’ve gone from the transactional nature of shopping on the web to demanding a personalized experience. Small wonder, a recent Edelman report reveals that 87% percent of buyers demand meaningful, contextual, relevant experiences. Consider the department stores where the characters of Mad Men shopped. Their shopping experience was extremely personalized—they would go directly to a salesperson that knew them and their purchase history, and therefore could recommend other relevant products to them. But that experience doesn’t scale…or does it? When you think about where we are in digital marketing today, there’s no excuse to not offer your buyers personalized recommendations and conversations. A complete marketing automation solution allows you to do this with trigger workflows that listen to activity across different channels and send personalized, automated responses based on actions that they take (or don’t take). And finding the right solution that allows you to do this is well worth it. In fact, 40% of consumers shop more at brands that personalize for them, according to MyBuys. But the right solution is just the start. Here are 3 easy ways that you can get personal with your buyers: 1. Listen to What They Do, Not Just What They Say To understand what your buyers want, go beyond just listening to what they say they prefer and “listen” to their behavior across your channels. Everyone is one in a million, so consider each and every buyer you interact with as an individual. When you figure that all 18-24 year old females should like X product and send them promotional emails based on that assumption, you’ll likely be marked as spam when your communications don’t resonate. Instead, take a look at each buyer’s unique journey with your brand. Take for example their activity on your website or their interactions on your mobile app. What pages do they visit? What links do they click on? What push notifications do they tap on…or not tap on? What keyword searches brought them to the site or app? And sometimes more importantly, what are they NOT interacting with? Are there content types or product pages they never click on? Use this valuable information to inform and optimize your campaigns. 2. Go Beyond Names Yes, putting a recipient’s name in an email increases open rates and engagement, but you can do so much more! Consider using tokens and dynamic content that will update for every single email. Say you’re an owner of a pet store. You can thank your customers for buying the last product they purchased, build rapport by referencing the animal type they have, and promote offers for their preferred pet food brand. But wait, there’s more. Why not change the image in the email to match their animal as well? You know those dog lovers can’t resist a cute puppy picture! Some options for personalization include: Name Last product purchased (text or picture) Subscription end date Product interest category (text or picture) Industry (text or picture) Location Sales rep name Preferred store location Birthday 3. Nurture for Interests You may have already set up a nurture campaign to welcome new customers, but it doesn’t need to be a generic one. People engage with content they care about and they will identify with your brand more when you offer them content that’s relevant. Consider setting up separate nurture streams by product interest (ex. cars, trucks, minivans) or purchase behavior (never purchased, purchased once, repeat customer). Think of different categories of customers that are easy to identify, such as status or product interest, but also not too niche (red convertible lovers in Utah) so that the content is easier to create. Consider measuring the effectiveness and engagement with each stream to understand how to improve them down the line. In a world of information abundance, buyers are more empowered than ever before. And armed with this info, they are forming opinions and drawing conclusions well before they choose to interact with your brand. It’s now up to marketing, more than any other business function, to become the steward of the customer journey. So, get personal! What are some other easy-wins to get personal with your audience? Share your tips in the comments below!

By: Renata Bell Posted: May 26, 2016 | Engagement Marketing Does it drive you crazy to receive email offers for products you already own? What about suggestions for irrelevant products? Millennials are hailed as the most brand loyal generation, and this loyalty frequently stems from interactions that are highly relevant and targeted. But it doesn’t just stop with Millennials; GenXers and Babyboomers appreciate contextuality all the same. “Send me offers and content I care about and nothing more.” While a healthy customer base indicates that there is a clear need for your product or service, failing to build on your knowledge of these existing customers and capitalize on cross-sell opportunities can stunt your revenue growth. Successful brands look past acquisition and focus on increasing the customer lifetime value (CLV) by retaining their customers and continuing to sell to them. Financial services firms in particular recognize the value of effective cross-sell. Their customers own on average 8-12 financial products, but only 2-3 at a single institution, according to The Financial Brand. And in an age where costs are squeezed and the largest source of future revenue is through acquisition and cross-sell/upsell, firms still frequently miss the mark of engaging with their customers in an individualized and timely manner. When it comes to cross-selling competencies, bigger is not better. In fact, credit unions and mutual insurance companies (mutuals) sell more to their existing members, garnering more wallet share. Why? Credit unions and mutuals have more nimble (read: small) marketing departments and more importantly, loyal customers. Their customers feel trust and goodwill from their bank and thus they engage more with them, rather than their competitors. Customer retention and cross-sell is important in any industry, not just financial services, yet it’s frequently overlooked. Many companies focus on new customers, but fail to apply similar efforts to retain a customer or sell more to an existing customer. And since retaining and cross-selling a customer is much less expensive than gaining a new one, creating a strategy around retention can make the difference in company profitability. Below are three critical factors to effectively cross-sell to your customers: 1. Send Timely, Relevant Responses How can financial services firms, and other marketers, create engagement that results in better cross-selling? It’s all about the individualized and timely messages. Consider this: most banking customers feel that messaging they receive feels general in nature and frequently annoying. A Gallup study shows that 66% of ‘fully engaged’ customers felt the offers they receive are general in nature, 41% found the offer annoying, and 53% of customers already had the product being promoted. This creates disengaged customers that ignore and opt out of emails. However, when customers receive timely offers based on the products they’re actively considering directed at the buying stage they are in, engagement and conversions shoot up. To engage buyers, digital communication must become less “batch and blast” and instead shift to be more like real human dialog. And that includes “listening and responding,” which requires automation that monitors for explicit and implicit (behavioral) cues, captures that data (listens) in a rich behavioral database, and then uses the data to customize a valuable response (responds). One example of this is a regional bank listening for individual customers who visit a car loan rates page and responding by triggering an email offering a personalized quote for a new auto loan. Sending this email to all customers would be ineffective, but when it’s targeted based on behaviors, it can be quite successful. The same can be done for your company by monitoring a customer’s interactions with specific content on other products or services and then sending triggered responses based on those actions for successful engagement. In fact, triggered emails can double, even triple, email open and click rates—which makes sense because it’s based on timely behaviors, not on assumptions. 2. Content Matters More than half of customers considering a new financial product do their research ahead of time. In fact, these customers who do their research convert at a 17% higher rate than those who buy products impulsively. This applies across industries, since the majority of buyers do their own research before ever interacting with your brand. Producing valuable, non-salesy content that answers customer questions and leads them through the decision-making process can make a huge impact on attracting the right buyers who are hungry for information. It also builds trust and transparency, which fosters engagement. Furthermore, content consumption is a clear signal for buying behavior, allowing marketers to respond effectively with personalized messages that are appropriate for the customer’s buying stage and interests. A banking customer who downloads a content piece on how to plan for a child’s college savings shows clear interest in a certain set of financial products—perhaps also student loans or 529 savings plans. 3. Apply Science to It Those who are the most successful at cross-selling marry the science and art of digital marketing. There’s a fine line between timely offers and annoying spam, and understanding buyer timing is critical to distinguish it. Thus, marketers need to continuously improve and hone their customer journeys with A/B testing, nurturing tracks, and metrics. Your content strategy is key to acquiring new customers and selling to existing customers, but you also need to understand how you will measure success. Is it by engagement with your content? Percentage of cross-sell or upsell success? Amount of revenue generated by program? There are many ways to measure, but be sure to be clear in your goals and nimble in your execution. Whatever industry you’re in, don’t leave your hard-won customers in the dark. Engage in two-way conversationsthat listen and respond to each and every interaction. This two-way conversation should extend to your own internal teams, as you ask questions and measure outcomes to continuously improve the customer experience.

By: Russell Banzon If your company is anything like some that I’ve seen around Silicon Valley, your sales reps see their quotas increase quarter after quarter. With lofty goals, every sales rep needs to utilize all the tools he has at his disposal to close the deal. While social media sometimes gets a bad rep among professionals due to the endless posts about difficult math problems and memes, when done well, social media can be one of the most effective and underutilized channels for sales teams. In this blog, I’ll cover five strategies to use LinkedIn to drive significant revenue for your company: 1. Add Prospective Customers and Share Their Content with Your Network This may be obvious, but a reminder never hurts: you should always connect with your leads! Having access to the content that they like and share is paramount to having a strong conversation with them. This is especially important to do if your lead is publishing original content on LinkedIn. Why? Because re-promoting their content by sharing it shows your support. Personally, I absolutely love when one of our vendors shares my content. It shows me that the rep is actually interested in having a relationship with me and that I’m not just closed won business. Remember though, when you invite your prospect, always send them a tailored request to connect. Selling is way better received when it feels like a 1-to-1 relationship, rather than a blanket message to all people. As social selling magnate Nancy Nardin would say, “Social is personal!” Here’s a basic example: From the short message above, you can tell that whoever the requestor is (me, in this case), really dove into the person’s profile and even pointed out that the person had something to gain by connecting—content they might be interested in! Once you begin connecting with prospects, their activity will show up on your feed. You’ll be able to find even more prospects because of this. When your connection, say a sales ops professional, likes another sales ops professional’s content, you’ll find yourself with another lead opportunity. 2. Warm Introductions Even more powerful than a custom invitation to connect is a warm introduction. As you access people’s profiles, on the top right hand side, LinkedIn will automatically find people who you and your prospect have in common. They even tell you what your connection and your prospect have in common! Let’s look at another example: In this example, I would be the sales rep and Elaine would be the prospect I’m looking to reach. Once I see that Sharon is a joint connection, I could reach out to Sharon and ask her if she would be comfortable with giving me a warm introduction to connect with Elaine since they went to the same college. After this introduction, I can steer the ship—but this makes reaching Elaine much easier than coming in cold. 3. Find the Right Leads with Sales Navigator If you haven’t heard of LinkedIn Sales Navigator yet, you may want to check it out. There are numerous benefits to going premium on LinkedIn, from account filters that show you your target leads at your target companies to the social selling index that measures your social selling effectiveness (which I’ll cover towards the end of this blog). So how do you get started? First, build out your account lists in Sales Navigator. Following accounts in Sales Navigator will provide you with up-to-date information on what is happening within that company. It gives you updates on what the company is sharing so that you know what your prospects truly care about and what their company is focusing on. Then, you can act on key events, such as funding announcements, to engage in meaningful conversation with your prospects. Being able to kick start a conversation with “Congratulations on the recent funding round” is much stronger than “Hey, I’m Russell.“ Oh yeah, and did I mention you can build lead lists in your target accounts? If you already have your target persona, such as those built to segment and target audiences within your marketing automation platform, take advantage of all the filters the LinkedIn premium account offers to create targeted lists. This comes in handy when you need to, for example, find all the VPs of Sales in your region within your account tier, but don’t have a complete list of company names. You can go even deeper with profile filters such as keywords, seniority level, and industry. If you already have a target account list, you should do some account specific profile searching by using the “current company” filter. 4. Build Your Account Contact List with “Export to CRM” One of the most painful things as a sales rep or business development rep is manually updating your CRM with new leads, which is equally important for your marketing automation platform since often the two platforms integrate seamlessly with the right solutions. Many times you’ll want to do prospecting in LinkedIn, but your CRM is your single source of truth (“If it’s not in the CRM, it never happened” type scenario.) Save additional time by adding in the “Export to CRM” Chrome extension to your browser. This allows you to easily create a contact in your CRM using someone’s LinkedIn profile. This is especially helpful for the marketing team, who’s always on the lookout for new names to add to the database. Once they’re in the database, the marketing team can then support the sales team by plugging that contact into different, relevant, campaigns. Keep in mind that these contacts may not have opted-in to receiving email communications from you, so you may need to target them in other ways. 5. Measure Your Success with the Social Selling Index (SSI) This last tip makes social selling even more fun. LinkedIn provides a way for you to be graded on how well you use the platform to do social selling. There are four criterion that go into this rating. The social selling index (SSI)“measures how effective you are at establishing your professional brand, finding the right people, engaging with insights, and building relationships.” These factors impact your social selling index: The amount of content you share The number of connections you have with your target audience How often you click on insights on your feed How much you interact with others If you’re someone who manages social selling, sales enablement, or social media at a company, you can easily get people excited about their SSI score with a sales performance incentive fund (SPIF) and giveaways. Doing a major team-wide competition of who can raise their SSI score to the highest in a specific month can not only help your sales team sell better, but also help you get more brand exposure. These social selling strategies are a win-win situation, helping you connect with more prospects and develop more meaningful relationships with them. Pretty soon, it won’t be considered “social selling,” it will simply be a part of “selling.” What other tips do you have to boost sales through LinkedIn or other social platforms? Share them in the comments below!

The Marketo Certified Expert credential showcases your knowledge and proficiency in the use of Marketo, including the Marketing Calendar. This in-depth review shows you how Marketo uses Marketing Calendar, and  provides insights on campaign building through a familiar calendar view - empowering marketing teams to coordinate better, be more productive, and move faster than ever before. Watch the video: Video Link : 1429 More Information For more information on the Marketing Calendar, please see the Calendar product docs. Or if you have questions about Marketo Certification, please contact us at certification@marketo.com.

By: Chris Gillespie Yes, you read that right. Before you disagree, hear me out here. Salespeople need to be selling with more ego, not less, so that they can build better relationships with prospects and customers. First off, what does “ego” really mean and how does it affect you? Ego is not about having a big personality or being pushy; ego is a person’s sense of self-esteem. You act far more kindly when you feel that you have value, and you’re also more attuned to what others want. It makes you listen and engage in a way that’s respectful and productive, and if you disagree, you do it politely. But when people lack self-esteem and have low egos, they behave poorly. This becomes a big factor of the customer experience during a sales cycle, not to mention your working relationships with your coworkers and manager. But if you’re confident, then you become easier to work with, give straight answers, and are much more efficient. Here are three common examples of how salespeople with low egos act, and how the situation changes when they have a healthy, high ego: 1. Low-ego salespeople interpret your questions as criticisms. Because salespeople with low egos are on edge, they can often feel cornered when they’re not. In an effort to anticipate any objections they’re likely to face, they pounce quickly, even when it’s not really an objection. This is the result of their training going haywire, and only a salesperson with high ego knows how to relax and hear a prospect out without jumping to conclusions. Scenario 1: Low Ego Prospect: How much does your solution cost? Salesperson: Look, I know that our competitors probably told you that we’re more expensive, but I want you to know that they’re misleading you. We’re totally affordable. Prospect: Okay…so how much is it? Scenario 2: Healthy Ego Prospect: How much does your solution cost? Salesperson: That’s a great question. Is price a large factor in your evaluation? Prospect: No, I was just looking to get a ballpark. Salesperson: Great, it’s $X amount. 2. Low-ego salespeople never give you a straight answer. Salespeople are always looking to guide their prospects down a purchase path, but those with low egos often try to find shortcuts to get them there. The worst offense is when you receive a valid concern that needs an answer, either a yes or a no, and you don’t give them a direct one. It’s frustrating for your prospects and ruins your credibility. High-ego salespeople realize that there needs to be a mutual fit for them to get a sale. Scenario 1: Low Ego Prospect: But isn’t it true that your system doesn’t do X? Salesperson: Our solution is totally comprehensive, so that’s not something that you’ll ever have to worry about with us. Prospect: …. Scenario 2: Healthy Ego Prospect: But isn’t it true that your system doesn’t do X? Salesperson: Good catch, that’s true. Is that critical to your evaluation? Prospect: Not to me, but to my boss, yes. Salesperson: Well, I’ll be honest with you. It’s not a native feature, but we do have technology partners who do that and are well integrated with our platform. Prospect: Okay, I’m sure that’s fine. 3. Low-ego salespeople over-use industry lingo to the point of being incomprehensible. They pack their answers with so many buzzwords that it obscures the true meaning. This is sometimes referred to as corporate-speak or “corpuspeak.” These types of salespeople are so worried that they won’t hit the right series of buzzwords that they end up trying them all. But confident salespeople know that bombarding clients with buzzwords makes them harder to understand, so they choose to speak in terms that are easy to digest. Scenario 1: Low Ego Prospect: Does this solution solve my problem? Salesperson: Absolutely, because it’s the most seamless social widget packed with innovative collaboration aspects married with intuitive social trends analytics. No fire-drills necessary. Scenario 2: Healthy Ego Prospect: Does this solution solve my problem? Salesperson: It does. You mentioned that your main objective is to drive more revenue, and our solution drives more quality leads to the salespeople, which results in 24-30% more revenue. Is this starting to make sense now? The main idea here is that when salespeople aren’t confident, they go through a lot of extra motions that waste time. They’re also prone to seeing any concerns that are raised as a win-lose scenario, not a win-win, so they’ll engage in dishonest behavior and stray from answering a question directly. When they have a healthy ego, that fear of rejection melts away, and they’re able to be authentic and provide a far superior customer experience. So, if you’re looking to improve the buyer’s experience and close more deals, what do you need? More ego. Let’s get to the heart of this: how does a salesperson develop more ego? What’s the secret recipe? It’s a combination of all of these things: They have confidence. Salespeople are confident when they have the tools, resources, and knowledge they need and when management believes in them and they believe in their mission. Doubts in any of these areas can quickly cripple their confidence. They work in a strong sales culture. Salespeople need to be in a collaborative, supportive environment that picks them back up when they’re down. They’re rested and ready. Frazzled salespeople have low egos because they’re physically worn out. Don’t let this happen to you or your team. They’re immunized against sales “rejection flu”. Getting over the fear of rejection is a big component of building up a salesperson’s ego. They need to learn how to overcome it. They have a well-defined process to follow. Salespeople with low egos are typically nervous and lack a sense of how to close a deal. If you’re in the software industry, take a look at the 7 Steps for SaaS Sales Success infographic or come up with your own version to share with the team. They focus on earning trust. Low ego salespeople are trying to slam-and-cram deals because they don’t believe in the intrinsic value of their product or their own self-worth. Focus on first earning prospect’s trust and everything that follows will be much easier. They empathize with the customer. Have your salespeople shadow calls and think of themselves as customers so that they can see what good and bad sales calls sound like. If they put themselves in the customer’s shoes, they’ll have more confidence about the type of rep that they want to be. Salespeople thrive in a solid sales environment that supports them, encourages them to do the right thing, and trusts them to be the face of the company. When these factors come together, it boosts their ego and improves the sales process and customer experience dramatically. What other traits do you think salespeople need? Comment below!

Posted on behalf of our CEO, Phil Fernandez When I started Marketo a decade ago, marketing was viewed primarily as a cost center whose chief function was to support other groups inside the enterprise. Yesterday’s marketers played a secondary role and primarily teed up brand impressions and TV ads that enabled sales to go out and sell. But technology is transforming the way that customers communicate, interact, and engage with brands, driving fundamental changes that are moving marketing beyond the narrow confines of marketing departments. Customers now engage with companies all the time as they communicate across a range of touchpoints - including social and mobile technologies, locations, and physical objects. That wealth of data can bring us closer than ever before to our customers, and give us the ability to build real relationships with every customer based on what they’re saying - and not saying. It’s the Holy Grail for marketers. Consider how yesterday’s marketers created ads and made decisions based largely on emotions. What a different picture exists today. Marketers today have access to powerful tools to help make decisions using data. What’s more, today’s marketers are driving revenue and have a broader stage to drive strategy centered around the lifecycle of the customer experience. A boardroom priority I’ve had many conversations with executives from leading global companies recently who are all talking about the next transformation ahead for their business. Some call it a digital transformation, others a customer experience transformation, but whatever you call it, this transition commands the attention of the CMO, CIO, and even the CEO. Indeed, McKinsey found that more than half the time, CEOs now personally sponsor their company’s digital initiatives, up from just 23 percent in 2012. Their involvement underscores just how important it is for companies to put the new data and analytics to use and get closer to their customers. This shared agenda - recently described by Forrester Research CEO George Colony as a new Age of the Customer - is going to forever change the customer experience. But the road ahead includes unique technology challenges as well. A new class of enterprise systems Digital is at the core of everything we do in marketing and the delivery of cloud marketing technology is undergoing an exciting revolution. What we once called “marketing automation” has developed strong new muscles and evolved into a broad, ultra-high-scale, analytically-powered enterprise customer platform. The technology has broken out of the marketing department to become essential to vast transformation projects and a strategic weapon in business. The explosion in the number of touchpoints and interactions is far beyond what most organizations are used to handling. There’s no hope of transforming the organization without a way to hear and analyze the totality of all this new information. That’s why prescriptive and at-scale technologies will play an integral role in this digital transformation. The volume of information and interactions that companies need to understand as they engage their customers will be unprecedented. They’ll take the form of more than one billion customer touchpoints per day - that tell a story about a customer, and require a company to listen, learn and speak in a consistent, relevant and meaningful way at every stage of the customer journey. Marketo will very soon deliver our customers our largest technology investment to date that will be our contribution to making this happen. Code-named Project Orion, it will have the capacity to handle 40 million events per customer per hour, store quadrillions of customer events within a few years, and handle 90 percent of analytics queries within five seconds. This new platform will become the fabric of the enterprise, allowing companies to hear their customers everywhere they are, and enabling marketers to guide their customers at exactly the right place and the right time. Technologies like this will ensure that companies never leave the side of the customer. That’s the only way to do digital transformation right. Otherwise, what’s the point? This post originally appeared on The Huffington Post on May 11, 2016.

OVERALL SUMMIT U.S. Make Digital Transformation Matter: Never Leave the Side of Your Customer Huffington Post Byline from Phil on how technology like a single platform enables companies to never leave the side of their customer. Does Tomorrow Belong to Marketers? Target Marketing A recap of Phil Fernandez’s keynote and discusses the new role of marketers. Will Smith Feels Your Pain, Markets to It Target Marketing A recap of Will Smith’s keynote and how marketers need to be authentic to establish a connection with their audience. The Fresh Prince of Marketing DM News An overview of Will Smith’s keynote at the Marketo Marketing Nation Summit. Top 50 Most Influential People at Marketo’s #MktgNation16 Heinz Marketing Little Bird ranking of the top 50 individuals in the Marketo sphere. Marketing Nation’s 3 Keys to Content Marketing Modern Marketing Today An overview of Joe Pulizzi’s session on content marketing. AUS Learn to Thrive In An Intense World, Marketo CEO Tells Marketers B&T An overview of Phil Fernandez’s keynote. Making Sense of the Crazy MarTech Landscape #MktngNation CMS Wire How marketers hone their skills and refine their strategies is more important than implementation of the latest, greatest technologies. Marketo’s CEO talks martech consolidation and his enterprise customer ambitions CMO Australia Chief of marketing automation vendor responds to ongoing acquisition rumours as well as the martech and adtech industry collision. Marketo CEO: The CMO's agenda is now the company's entire agenda CMO Australia “Customer experience is on the minds of CEO, the CIO... whole organisations are thinking about transforming,” Philsaid. “Tomorrow’s marketer needs to transform as part of that process and think differently. Your agenda is the entire company’s agenda.” 6 Lessons on effective marketing from Will Smith CMO Australia Overview of Will Smith’s Summit Keynote. Learn To Thrive In An Intense World, Marketo CEO Tells Marketers Which-50 Overview of Phil Fernandez’s keynote with multiple quotes throughout. Introduces Project Orion. Japan The word "Marketing Automation” will disappear in two or three years  - Marketo CEO Phil Fernandez (Translated) Advertimes Results of an interview with Phil. Marketo runs an event at Las Vegas with the theme “TOMORROW’S MARKETER" (Translated) Advertimes Overview of Summit. PRODUCT U.S. Getting to “opti-channel”: Marketo unveils next-gen technology The Drum An overview of the Orion platform and marketing strategies. Quotes Shankar Venkataraman and Chandar Pattabhiram throughout Marketo Summit 2016: Marketo Releases Platform Upgrade for ‘Tomorrow’s Marketer’ Destination CRM An overview of Phil Fernandez’s keynote, Project Orion, as well as Vidyard, EverString and AdRoll partnerships. Marketo takes lead in digital software Examiner.com Marketo showed its “Rocky contender” strength at its Marketing Nation® Summit in Las Vegas yesterday in the digital era. Marketo announces Project Orion, new offerings Fierce CMO An overview of Project Orion, ABM tools and Email Insights. Comment from Phil Fernandez on the mission of the marketer changing. Marketo Reveals Platform Investment, ABM Offering #MktngNation CMSWire Overview of new offerings, including ABM tools, Orion, Predictive Content and Analytics. Comment from Phil Fernandez on how the marketing industry has evolved significantly in the last 10 years. Marketo plots new platform, analytics, IoT touch points ZDNet Overview of new offerings, including Orion, ABM tools and Email Insights. Marketo Summit 2016: Marketo Releases Platform Upgrade for Tomorrow's Marketer Destination CRM Marketo releases Project Orion, which aims to give companies the tools for interacting with customers at every step of their journey. Marketo Rolls out Upgrades to Project Orion, Enhances Sales Enablement, ABM, and More MarTech Advisor An overview of the Orion platform and marketing strategies. AUS CMO's top 10 martech stories for this week - 12 May CMO Australia Marketo has made a number of product announcements during its annual industry summit, all aimed at furthering its ambitions to be at the heart of CX transformation across the enterprise. Marketo Reveals Project Orion Which-50 Overview of new offerings, including Orion, ABM tools, Predictive Content and Analytics. Includes quotes from Chandar Pattabhiram. Marketo Reveals Project Orion LinkedIn Pulse Post by Andrew Birmingham from Australia. CUSTOMERS U.S. Trail Blazers SVP: The Multifaceted Role of Today's Sports Marketers DM News An overview of Vincent Ircandia’s keynote at Marketo Marketing Nation Summit AUS How marketers are using tech and data to drive customer centricity CMO Australia Marketing and digital leaders from DHL, Xerox and more share how they're working to instil customer experience at the heart of their companies' business strategy. PR Newswire CMO: Today's consumers are self-obsessed CMO Australia Marketing leader for news distribution agency shares tips on how marketers can achieve next-generation customer experience. Japan Look to professional basketball team, "Trail Blazers", sports market of Engagement Marketing - Marketo "THE MARKETING NATION" report (Translated) AdverTimes Result of an interview with Vincent Ircandia of the Trail Blazers. PARTNERS Wunderman Interview / Gen Z, The Optimisation Generation Contagious Magazine (UK) Result of an interview with Day 2 keynote speaker Jamie Gutfreund of Wunderman. Wunderman CMO: Marketers must tap their consumer's passion points CMO Australia Today's increasingly influential Generation Z demand realism and consistency and in brand control, according to agency's marketing, says Jamie Gutfreund. LeadSpace Marketo and Leadspace Strike Partnership to Bring Predictive Insights to Account-Based Marketing MarTech Advisor Announcement of Leadspace partnership, Jason Hoffman hire, and sale speculation. Comment from David Cain on Leadspace partnership. DoubleDutch Marketo, Salesforce Integrate With Events Performance Monitor CMSWire Overviews DoubleDutch’s integration of both Salesforce and Marketo platforms. Vibes Vibes and Marketo join in mobile marketing Examiner Announcement of Vibes partnership. Comment from Mike Stocker on creating a solution that empowers marketers to reach consumers on their device of choice. Vibes, Marketo tie-up underscores growing opportunity for mobile wallet marketing Mobile Marketer Announcement of Vibes partnership. Comment from Mike Stocker on how Marketo is providing the ability for marketers to engage via SMS and mobile wallet. Vibes & Marketo Partner Up to Bolster Mobile Marketing Android Headlines Announcement of Vibes partnership. Comment from Mike Stocker on creating a solution that empowers marketers to reach consumers on their device of choice. Marketo, Vibes Partner For Mobile Marketing Automation MediaPost Announcement of Vibes partnership. Comment from Mike Stocker on creating a solution that empowers marketers to reach consumers on their device of choice. Ad Roundup: Solutions for extended reach BizReport A round up of new Ad solutions to help brands better reach their consumers. Comment from Mike Stocker on Marketo clients seeking to amplify their mobile marketing to build stronger relationships with customers. Marketo & Vibes Team Up to Power Mobile Marketing Automation Solution CMS Critic Announcement of Vibes partnership. Comment from Mike Stocker on creating a solution that empowers marketers to reach consumers on their device of choice. Marketo Partners with Vibes for Mobile Solution DestinationCRM Announcement of Vibes partnership. Comment from Mike Stocker on creating a solution that empowers marketers to reach consumers on their device of choice. First Look: Marketo and Vibes Join Forces to Empower Businesses Leveraging Mobile Mobile Advertising Watch Announcement of Vibes partnership. Mobile Marketing Gets Good Vibes in Latest Industry News Mobile Marketing Watch Announcement of Vibes partnership. Comment from Mike Stocker on creating a solution that empowers marketers to reach consumers on their device of choice. Marketo and Vibes partner to launch mobile marketing automation solution MobyAffiliates Announcement of Vibes partnership. Comment from Mike Stocker on creating a solution that empowers marketers to reach consumers on their device of choice. NewsCred/Radius Radius, NewsCred announce Marketo integrations Fierce CMO An overview of the Radius and NewsCred integrations. NewsCred Integrates with Marketo CRM Destination Announcement of NewsCred integration. Comment from Lou Pelosi on how NewsCred will help Marketo customers innovate, grow and deliver impactful business results in content marketing. NewsCred Integrates with Marketo to Drive Lead Generation, Nurturing, and Sales through Content Marketing MarTechAdvisor Announcement of NewsCred integration. Comment from Lou Pelosi on how NewsCred will help Marketo customers innovate, grow and deliver impactful business results in content marketing. Marketo Expands Content Marketing Toolbox MediaPost Overview of NewsCred and Radius integration, describing features and capabilities. Radius Announces New Marketo Integration and Predictive Scoring Capabilities Allowing B2B Marketers to Take Action on Leads in Real-Time MarTech Advisor Announcement of Radius integration. Comment from Lou Pelosi on how Radius will help Marketo customers innovate, grow and deliver impactful business results in content marketing. Partner Blogs I Met Will Smith Twice At The Marketo Summit Intelligent Demand A recap of Will Smith’s keynote at the Marketo Marketing Nation Summit. Fathom at Marketing Nation Summit: Marketo Socks, Will Smith & More Fathom Delivers An announcement that Fathom will be at the Marketo Marketing Nation Summit.

By: Janet Dulsky Posted: May 16, 2016 | Modern Marketing As marketers, we have been forced to become more technically adept as we are on the verge of another major shift. As our CMO put it, “Marketing has changed more in the last five years than it has in the last 500 and will change more in the next five than ever before.” With the emergence of new technologies, we now have to be able to look at data, understand it, and use it to make decisions about our marketing campaigns. While I feel pretty good about my “technical” skills, when I have to deal with teammates who are engineers, web developers, or other really technical folks, I sometimes feel like a babe in the woods. Having had the opportunity to work with plenty of these techy types over the years, I’ve developed my own personal list of do’s and don’ts for working with them. This list isn’t rocket science. All of these do’s and don’ts for working with technical teammates are simply practicing good interpersonal skills: 1. DO Bring Your “A” Game This is all about respect. You want your technical teammates to respect you, not look down on you as one of those “fluffy” marketing types. Don’t be afraid to show them what you do know. I recently went through the Google Analytics (GA) Digital Analytics Fundamentals online course with the goal of eventually getting certified (still working on that). When I was reviewing our web data with our analyst, I let him know I was familiar with GA and pointed out some of my observations from looking at the data. For example, I noticed visitors were dropping off on our pricing page at a higher rate than I expected. This led to us having a conversation about testing changes on the page, including CTAs, form placement, and content, to encourage more of our visitors to engage. 2. DON’T Be Afraid to Ask Questions Ever had that feeling in a meeting that everyone else is speaking a foreign language you don’t understand? I had that experience just the other day when I was sitting in a meeting with our engineers who were talking about software integrations. I had to decipher the language if I wanted to get my job done, so I started asking questions. “What’s a connector?”, “What’s an API call?”, and so on. My colleagues happily answered my questions, and I slowly began to make sense of the discussion. Asking questions doesn’t make you look stupid. Not asking questions when you don’t know something does, and it can negatively impact your ability to do your job well. Besides, everyone likes to be considered an expert on something, so by asking questions, you allow your teammates to demonstrate their expertise as they teach you. 3. DO Really Listen While you do know a lot, you don’t know everything. Be willing to really listen to what your teammates are saying, especially when they’re explaining something technical to you. It shows that you’re interested in what they do and respect their expertise. And you’ll probably learn something that’s both interesting and useful. I find that I usually do. When I deleted something from our website’s content management system (CMS), I noticed that the content was still showing up on the website. When I asked our web developer about it, he explained that we had different time delays set for flushing the cache on various pages on the site based on how often the content typically changes. Not only did his information help me understand why I was still seeing deleted content on the website, the information was valuable for me going forward since I can now plan changes to the website around the timing of the cache flushing. 4. DON’T Say “I Can’t” If your technical teammates ask you to do something technical, don’t say immediately say “I can’t.” First (here’s where my inner cheerleader comes out), you can because you’re smart and a quick learner. Second, you will earn your teammates’ respect if you’re willing to try and give it your best effort. The more you learn about the technical work your teammates do, the easier it is for you to speak their language and know exactly what to ask them for when you need help. When I worked on my first web project, I didn’t know how to work with the CMS. I didn’t let that deter me. I asked lots of questions, listened to the answers, and jumped right in. Now, I am very comfortable working in a CMS. For marketers to be successful today, we need to be generalists with both a breadth and depth of knowledge. Who knows? You may discover an aptitude for a technical skill you never knew you had. In addition, being exposed to and learning new technical skills is a bonus for you and your career. Learning something new makes you that much more valuable to your company. Plus, it keeps you interested and engaged. 5. DO Always Say “Thank You!” This is the most obvious of all my do’s and don’ts, but it’s amazing how often people forget this simple courtesy. Everybody likes to be appreciated. Telling a teammate “thank you” for showing you how to do something, going out of their way to explain something to you, or helping you get your job done goes a long way in building good working relationships. I find that these two simple words make people more willing to help me the next time around. And, they make working with my technical colleagues (or anyone for that matter) much more pleasant. As marketers, we have lots to learn from our technical brethren. So, embrace your inner nerd and reach out to your technical teammates. Have any do’s or don’ts of your own to share? I’d love to hear them in the comments below!

By: Alexandra Nation Posted: May 9, 2016 | Sales Ah, my first software demo–I remember it like it was yesterday (it was four years ago). Somewhere out there is a shell-shocked prospect wondering why on earth they even took my call. If you’re in a client-facing role and looking to improve your demo and presentation skills, this blog post is for you. For your amusement or horror, below is a list of some of the missteps I made during that call: My voice shook from nerves and too much coffee. I didn’t ask questions. Instead, I rambled on with details of no consequence and irrelevant tangents. My mouse flew all over the screen for no apparent reason as I excitedly clicked into every last feature of the product. I jumped to answer every question instead of trying to understand the use case, which invariably led to more questions. I completely neglected to read my audience and adjust accordingly. I made a very sleek and easy to use technology appear complicated and confusing. I called out bugs in the demo instance on the 1-2 occasions that the product didn’t function properly. Tell them. This is when you build your business case for why your solution meets their needs. Don’t just rattle off different features. Speak to how you can help—how can your product or service can help them overcome their challenges? Tell them what you told them. Repeat your takeaways to drive the point home before you end your presentation. When you deliver your demo, pause early and often. In my early days at Marketo, I watched my fellow SCs employ the magic of a pause in their demos. At the end of each section, they would pause for several seconds–to the point where it was borderline uncomfortable–instead of asking for some kind of feedback. Again, it demonstrates through your actions that you care about keeping the call conversational, and it gives your conversational partner an easy way to participate. 5. When You Do Talk, Pretend You’re a News Anchor Think of how news anchors speak: in easily digestible, repeatable sound bites. Celebrity news hosts are especially good at this, but you can watch for it on every single news program. When someone on CNN is explaining a foreign policy decision, they don’t go off on some obscure tangent. Rather, they don’t waste a single word, use plain English, and follow a very logical flow. I just gave you an excuse to watch TMZ to improve in your job—you’re welcome. Pretending you’re a news anchor will also accomplish another important goal: keeping your demo laser-focused. Every click and every screen you show should have a purpose. 6. Take Your Hands Off the Keyboard If you are not specifically clicking on something, take your hands off the keyboard and put them in your lap while you answer a question. This will help you avoid waving your mouse all over the screen and distracting your prospect. They will look wherever you point, so mind your gestures. Plus, who knows what you might accidentally click on? 7. Discover the QBQ–the Question Behind the Question I was recently on an internal certification for one of our newer Solutions Consultants. Our manager asked her how many filters we have in a specific feature, and she handled it perfectly. Rather than scramble to answer, she paused, smiled, and asked him to explain his use case. Sure enough, he had no interest in a number, but wanted to see a specific scenario built out. The conversation took a completely different and far more productive path because it veered away from features/functions and towards benefits and addressing pain points. 8. Balance Likability with Excellent Product Knowledge I firmly believe that people buy from people they like. They also buy from people who know what they’re talking about. It’s important to establish a positive relationship with your customer, but only after you’ve earned it by establishing your credibility. This means that if you don’t know something, admit it candidly. Then, earn their trust even more by following up promptly with the correct answer to their question. 9. Record Yourself The best athletes watch their games and pick apart everything they could have done better. The best salespeople do the same. Use the camera on your computer or phone if you do any onsite presentations, or use a screen/voice capture product like Snagit if you conduct business virtually. This will help you identify your filler words and see how well you navigate your product. 10. Don’t Call the Baby Ugly This one drives me crazy. If your demo instance is lacking some data, loads an odd screen or error message, or just takes a minute to pull up, don’t acknowledge it. Fill the space with conversation and don’t apologize for your tools. Most of the time, the customer doesn’t notice that there’s an issue. Worst-case scenario is that you can follow up after the call with a screenshot of what you wanted to show, which opens a door for another conversation with them. Whether you’re just getting started in sales or looking to master your craft, I’d love to hear from you. Which of these tips resonated? Is there anything you’d add to the list?

Marketo - Google Adwords Integration Data Sheet

By: Divya Dutt Posted: May 3, 2016 | Social Media In the last year or so, advertising on social channels has changed tremendously. Lately, major networks have changed their algorithms to give their users a better experience—one with less promotional content and more relevant content that they want to see. Because of these changes, as a marketer, you need to supplement your organic posts with paid promotion to get your posts seen by your audience. In fact, eMarketer reports that by 2017, social network ad spending will reach $35.98 billion worldwide. As marketers are increasingly spending more on social platforms, it’s more important than ever to have the right strategy in place, track all of your paid social campaigns, and gain insights into what’s working and what’s not. Only then can you understand the return on ad spend (ROAS) from your campaigns. In this blog, I’ll be walking you through how to put together a paid social campaign from start to finish for optimum results. Here are five steps to amplify your paid social campaigns: 1. Define Your Goals It’s important to understand your goals for each paid social campaign upfront because your strategy and key performance metrics will vary depending on the goals you’re aiming to achieve. Your goals will help you map out the most relevant offers and content for your objectives—whether that’s brand awareness, engagement, lead generation, customer acquisition, retention, advocacy, or a combination of these. For instance, if your goal is to acquire more leads, you will probably want to share whitepapers or other gated content that people will need to fill out a form for so you can collect lead information. But if your goal is brand awareness, you might want to share ungated content such as an infographic or a fun video. 2. Identify Your Audience Just as you would with any marketing campaign, you need to know who you are trying to reach with each of your paid social ads. You may already have buyer personas for your company’s target audiences that you can pull from (in some organizations this may come from the product marketing team). Once you understand this, you will need to decide who your exact audience for your social campaigns will be. There are a lot of great ways to target specific audiences on various social platforms, but if you don’t know who you’re targeting, you won’t be able to take advantage of the targeting options. 3. Pick the Right Channel and Content The audiences on each social media network are different, and while some overlap across channels, their expectations of the type of content they’ll see on each channel is also different. So, you not only need to understand the networks your audiences are on and how to reach them there but also engage them with the right content. For example, ads about industry-focused events will probably do well on LinkedIn if they are targeted to a specific industry, but may not perform as well on Facebook. 4. Select Targeting Options Once you have determined which social media channels you will advertise on, it’s time to get familiar with the targeting options on each of those channels. Social networks are getting more sophisticated with their targeting options, and you can target based on different fields: interests, skills, titles, company names, and even lists from your marketing automation platform—for example, people in your database with certain characteristics. LinkedIn, for example, lets you target people based on their titles, skill sets, company, and even degree, while Facebook allows you to target people based on their demographics, behaviors, and interest levels in certain topics or products. LinkedIn’s Targeting Options: Facebook’s Targeting Options: Aside from targeting specific groups, you can also exclude certain audiences that you don’t want to serve specific content or ads. These people might not be the right fit for your ads, so excluding them will help you make the most of your marketing dollars by only putting your ads in front of the right audience. You can exclude people based on their emails address, interests, actions they have taken, and more. This comes in handy when you don’t want to advertise a product or service to a customer who’s already purchased it or to your competitors. 5. Create and Measure Your Campaigns A good campaign structure will help you measure and report on different initiatives that are going on. You can build separate campaigns around all the products and services you want to measure and report separately, which will help you identify the audience that is most likely to respond to a certain product and serve relevant content or ads that resonate with them the most. This is a lot harder to accomplish if you have everyone grouped together in the same campaign. However, in some cases, it might be wise to start with a broader audience. For example, if you’re launching a new product or service and are not sure who will be most responsive or if you have a niche audience, you might not want to get too specific so you can achieve a broader reach. Then, you can track the campaign data to identify which audiences responded the most. There are a few different ways to track the performance of your social campaigns. If you are using a marketing automation platform, then you can create campaigns that track not only form fills, but pipeline and revenue generated per campaign as well. Another way to measure your campaign performance is to set up unique URLs for each campaign. Depending on how granular you want to get, you can track your activity at a campaign level or within the campaign at a product or asset level. For instance, if you want to track how many people filled out a form to attend your company event, you can create a unique URL or marketing automation campaign to track visits to that event. However, if you were running three different paid ads to promote the event, you would probably want to know which one drove the most registration. Ultimately, your goal is to find out which event and ad drove pipeline and revenue. This knowledge will help you shift your budget away from lower performing events, assets, and paid ads towards the ones that are showing return on investment. Are you putting paid promotion behind your social media campaigns? I’d love to hear about your tips and tricks in the comments below!

Author: Joe Paone  ​ It’s no secret that the financial services industry has been going through a transformation in recent years. Independent financial advisors, as well as large institutions, are moving away from commissioned accounts to a fee-based approach. Firms like Merrill Lynch that were once full of commissioned-based brokerage accounts now have a company roadmap to transition customers to fee-only accounts. Advisors who were once paid on transactions are now be paid a percentage of all the money that they manage. This not only has implications for their business models but their marketing models as well. By tying compensation to assets under management (AUM), advisors are now highly incentivized to retain existing customers (unless they want a pay cut). And if they want to increase AUM, they must acquire new customers or cross-sell additional services like estate planning or tax planning. Impact to Marketers This shift in focus applies to marketers across all verticals, as buyers have higher expectations and are harder to win over without having personalized conversations. Gone are the days where a print ad strategy was all you needed to acquire new customers and keep your brand top-of-mind. Today’s marketers have to be more savvy than simply sending mass emails to their databases or hiring an agency to run a digital ad across the internet. Buyers and investors expect the same level of personalization they would get from Amazon, YouTube, or other retail companies. In an industry that is traditionally slow to adopt new technology, it’s imperative that marketers push their firms to change. There’s a reason robo-advisors like Wealthfront or Betterment are growing at breakneck speeds (granted, a very small percentage of assets are currently managed by robo-advisors). They are embracing technology like marketing automation to more efficiently and effectively acquire and retain customers through a personalized approach at scale. Here are three key ways marketing automation can help you acquire and retain customers, in financial services and beyond: 1. Segmentation To get the right message to the right investor, you must segment your audience. This is the same strategy YouTube uses when suggesting videos you may be interested in, or Amazon uses to suggest products you might want to consider. While there are ways to implement segmentation outside of marketing automation (excel, CRM, etc.), if you want to deliver different messages to different segmentations in real-time, there are no substitutes. Create a personalized journey by segmenting your prospects into different buckets so that you can provide each bucket specific content that aligns to your desired outcome. Basic segmentation can be separated into two different buckets: demographic (based on who they are) and behavioral (based on what they have done). Demographic: If you are an asset manager, for example, you can start demographic segmentation by splitting your audience into two categories: institutional investors and retail investors. For institutional investors, you likely know your target market very well. Marketing automation allows you to segment based on industry, company size, role, location, AUM, investment style, and anything else you deem important. On the other side, you have retail investors, which at a basic level can be segmented by age, net worth or investable assets, location, gender, and investment preferences or goals. Behavioral: Behavior segmentation is based on what your audience does, which could be: where a prospect is in the buying cycle, what their score is (which will be covered below), different financial products or strategies they have expressed an interest in, web activity or email engagement, and, of course, non-activity. All of these behaviors reveal their online body language that indicates their level of interest and future intent in becoming a client. Now that we’ve gone through the basic two components of segmentation, you can define and build specific segmentations for your clients and prospects that leverage both demographic and behavioral information. You will use these segmentations to help tailor your messaging for each group. Target accounts, investment strategy, client behavior, portfolio size, investor persona, and region all lend themselves well to different segmentations. Once you’ve nailed that down, the next step is to start developing even more advanced and targeted segments taking into account behavioral data, scoring, etc. An easy place to start is through your buyer personas. For example, a prospect may be retired and primarily interested in fixed income. If you want to acquire that prospect, it doesn’t make sense to communicate with them about a long-short strategy or some other tactical play. On the other hand, you may have identified some prospects that are more hands-on or sophisticated. Those potential investors may prefer more detailed communications in the form of a whitepaper and more frequent updates. The bottom line with segmentation is that if you know what your customers and prospects care about, you can tailor your communications to them. Whether you’re marketing financial products or business software, by delivering personalized communications to specific segments, with you’ll be able to take the personalized touch and feel of a 1 on 1 conversation and extend it into all of your digital marketing communications. 2. Scoring Lead scoring—a method of ranking leads for their sales-readiness, agreed upon by both sales and marketing—is a concept that you’re probably familiar with. Lead scoring helps you prioritize which prospects sales need to follow up with immediately and which prospects need to be nurtured. While it sounds easy enough to implement, depending on the size of your business, it can be extremely challenging without the right tools. If you work for a large firm, you may have to engage multiple teams (analytics, digital, etc.) and partners (agencies, third parties, etc.) in order to pull all the information that you need for lead scoring. This is extremely inefficient, time-consuming, and more often than not leaves you with stale data. If you work for a small firm, you may have to conduct your lead scoring by exporting data from various sources and running multiple Excel searches s to match known users to their behaviors. You may also be using a CRM system to help with your lead scoring. In either case, you’re left with incomplete data and can only score “known visitors,” leaving all unidentified or anonymous prospects behind. With marketing automation, you can set up rules that score prospects and customers based on demographics (investible assets, investment time horizon, etc.) and behavior (online and offline) as well as anything else that your sales team finds important. If your marketing automation platform integrates with your CRM, when a salesperson updates a record (i.e. changes a person’s investible assets), that information will be immediately reflected in the score. Scoring should happen in real-time, so you don’t have to spend countless hours pulling data and matching accounts. For an illustrative look at the benefits of lead scoring and how to implement it, refer to the chart below. On the right-hand side of this chart, there are two types of scores: latent behaviors (which are really just forms of engagement) and then active behaviors which demonstrate some buying intent. In latent behaviors, a prospect could download an early stage whitepaper and get +3 points. Then, that prospect, who you assumed to be a good prospect, began to visit the careers page heavily. This action indicates that perhaps this wasn’t a prospect at all, but rather someone who is interested in a job, so then you can decrease the score by -10. In active behaviors, if a prospect visits the fees page, you can assign them +30 points. Or if someone requests to be contacted, give them +50 points and send them straight to sales. Using this scoring methodology, you can then set a score threshold that indicates when a prospect is “sales-ready.” For example, if a prospect gets to a score of 100 (and you know that based on sales feedback, a score of 100 or greater indicates a warm prospect that is ready for a sales conversation), you can automatically notify sales. 3. Sales Efficiency Implementing a segmentation and scoring strategy will ultimately help your sales team become more efficient. They will better understand the right people to call (based on their lead score) and better understand what to talk about (based on their segmentation). As an example, let’s say that before you implemented marketing automation, you were sending 30 prospects per day to sales. Of those, only five were warm and ready to have a conversation. But since sales didn’t know which prospects were warm, they had to call all 30 to find the five warm prospects. That is inefficient. With marketing automation, taking the same example of 30 prospects per day, you can eliminate sending 17 of those prospects to sales because they didn’t reach the scoring threshold. Furthermore, you can eliminate three other prospects who visited your careers page. Ultimately, you end up only sending 10 prospects to sales, which means that your salespeople only need to make 10 calls to find five warm prospects, rather than making 30 to reach the same outcome. Through marketing automation, segmentation, and leading scoring, you’ll increase sales efficiency and your salespeople can spend more time prospecting through their own outbound efforts. All the companies and industries can benefit from a solid marketing automation platform. The financial services industry, in particular, is perfectly positioned to realize tremendous value. Investing can be very emotional for people as money doesn’t come easy, so if you send them mass emails or blanket messages that don’t speak to their particular needs or situation, you’re likely to alienate them. But with the right segmentation and scoring in place, you can create timely and hyper-relevant marketing campaigns that will help you acquire and retain clients, grow your existing customer base, and ultimately increase sales efficiency. What other industries can benefit immensely from marketing automation? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

The pace of digital transformation is forcing big changes in marketing, but many of its practitioners are failing to keep up. Distinguished marketing scholar, Roland Rust, who has taught marketing to generations of students at the University of Maryland, warns that unless the trend is reversed, there will be a widening communications gap. Read more in an excerpt below from his interview with Harvard Business Review Analytic Services.   HBR-AS: What are the pressures that marketers face today? Rust: A lot of the skills that used to make up a marketing professional are not really the skills that run marketing anymore. You have a lot of data scientists and information system people running a lot of marketing functions now. You’ve got all these computer scientists who are trying to figure out how to work with this data. The marketing people are sort of off on the side because they don’t have those skills. They are having a lot of trouble communicating with those folks. HBR-AS: Can you tell me a bit more about that communication gap? Rust: Well, “computer people” don’t know marketing, and marketing people don’t know computers. Even though there’s all this great data out there, turning that into something that you might call useful knowledge is a skill that is missing. HBR-AS: How do you imagine that should work? Rust: I think a lot of the problem is that when you think of marketing, it’s often a centralized function. That is a holdover from the mass media days when the goal of the marketing manager was to come up with television ad campaigns and that sort of thing. Meanwhile, the sales people were out in the field talking to actual customers. One was a very centralized, top down sort of function. The other was a decentralized, bottom up sort of function. They had totally different viewpoints and ways of looking at business. HBR-AS: How does that correct itself? Rust: I think it corrects itself by having the organization structured around customers. Really, that is a lot of what CRM was all about. Instead of doing centralized things that are the same for everybody in a very standardized way, you’re trying to figure out how to address each customer as an individual customer.   The amount of data is just proliferating at an unbelievable rate. That gives the organization a real opportunity to individualize and personalize.   HBR-AS: And how is marketing’s role changing? Rust: Well first of all, the structure of the economy has really changed in the last 50 years. The fastest growing part of the service economy is information service. With most information service, you actually know who the customer is or at least how they got online. You have a much more direct personal link to the customer, and that didn’t used to happen in business-to-consumer (B2C) to the extent that it does today. As a result you have all this information about the B2C customer. Now they can see things like, this person has product A, product B, product C, and therefore we ought to be able to – based on the patterns we see in our data – upsell this person to product D or be able to cross-sell to product E. Once you have that data, then you can link their behaviors to all sorts of things. You can take a look at patterns in behavior, you can take a look at how that relates to your direct marketing efforts, and also centralized marketing efforts, which still exist. Now there is so much direct communication that can be done. You can read more from Rust and other marketing experts in the report, Designing a Marketing Organization for the Digital Age.

By: Koustubha Deshpande Posted: April 28, 2016 | Mobile Marketing Getting users to download your app is easy. Okay, I might have stretched the truth there. It’s not easy at all, but it is the easiest step towards gaining a strong and loyal user base. Getting users to continuously use your app is an ongoing battle. But, these engagements are crucial to the lifecycle of your app. Today’s mobile user picks up or glances at their mobile phones up to 200 times each day and 75% of those interactions are just to glance at who called, what meeting is next, or what sale just started. With mobile marketing, you only have few seconds to make or break the relationship with your app users. In this blog, I’ll walk you through four different ways you can make your mobile app stand out and build a lasting relationship with your users: 1. Offer Choices App stores are extremely saturated. Users tend to install fewer apps and abandon them after only a couple of days. To build a loyal, engaged user base, you need significant acquisition budgets and a constant eye on retention rates. For their December 2015 index, Fiksu pegs the average cost per installs (CPIs) on a monthly basis for iOS CPI at $1.46 and Android’s at $3.34 (Android CPI is rising 144% YoY, with CPI skyrocketing in December). But offering your users choices can help you optimize your user funnel and increase app engagement, giving you a good return on your investment.  These choices include anything from allowing users to switch off push notifications to organizing aspects of the app in the order of their priorities. For example, the CircleBack app, which allows you to manage your contacts, personalizes user onboarding based on the user’s actions. Offering choices to your users allows you to personalize the app independently, so that it’s optimized to what’s best for them. Plus, you don’t have to do any guesswork or A/B testing; you can simply observe the choices your users make and move forward from there. 2. Push Notifications Push notifications are like email marketing, but for mobile apps. However, the main benefit push notifications has over email marketing is that mobile phones are checked much more frequently than email inboxes, so push notifications can make a more immediate impact on your audience. On the flip side, because they are looked at more frequently, traditional batch and blast marketing practices for push notifications can be more damaging than engaging. For instance, in email marketing, a company may send emails that they believe their recipients will be interested in, and then the recipients can choose whether to read it or ignore. But if you apply same rule to mobile push notifications, you are bound to fail because your notifications pop up on their home screen and are disruptive (which is OK as long as they are also helpful and relevant). If you use push notifications in your mobile marketing campaigns, you need to understand and respect that mobile devices are one of the most personal devices your users own, and if they feel that you are wasting their time with irrelevant or excessive push-notifications, you may lose their trust forever. Used correctly, push notifications can massively increase your sales and retention levels, as they have done for many brands already. As you’re planning your push notification strategy, consider what notifications your users would appreciate receiving (most likely, it’s not sales messages—unless you have a promotion going on). The examples below from Hopper and Dineout use push notifications to provide their users with value, notifying them when it’s the best time to book a flight and reminding them about their upcoming restaurant reservation. 3. Location Awareness Wherever we go, our mobile devices come with us. So it’s no surprise that using a mobile device’s location is helpful for both marketers and users alike. For example, after a user enters store or enters your conference hall, send them a coupon or a voucher for free food. Users expect relevancy and immediate action in these cases. So, you should plan your mobile marketing strategies so that as soon as your user arrives to a location, your app responds by delivering context-driven messages to their mobile devices. RetailMeNot’s app uses a user’s location to find offers in their vicinity. 4. Omni-Channel Communication Some mobile marketers may ignore email, SMS, social, or web channels with a narrow focus on purely mobile app marketing. But don’t forget that mobile apps or devices don’t make purchases; the people using them do. Buyers don’t care about your channel strategy; they only care about receiving a coordinated, contextual experience from you—they care want you to know them and understand what they want. Mobile apps aren’t the only way to communicate with your app users. There are multiple channels available, so use them in conjunction with your app. Use your buyers’ behaviors on one channel to inform your communication to them on the next channel they use. As you’re planning your mobile app marketing strategy, consider what type of content your users will actually want to see. And if you don’t know, just ask them, perhaps through mobile. 95% of consumers said they would respond to an SMS survey request, according to an Ipsos Mori study. Every communication sent to your buyers should be seen as a two-way conversation, one in which your audience and your business can benefit from. What other tips do you have for elevating your mobile app campaigns? Share them in the comments below.

By: Patrick Groover Posted: April 26, 2016 | Sales Marketing Alignment Have you been approached by your sales team within recent months asking for more leads or, in many cases, higher quality leads? (Where are my Star Trek fans?) As marketers, it’s no longer enough to be building the best communication with sales; it’s vital that we deliver the highest quality prospects to the sales team and reduce the amount of time spent on unqualified inquiries. And this can only be accomplished with the right insights. In this blog, I’ll cover two trends that are driving the demand from the sales team for higher quality leads, and how a strong marketing automation platform can help you provide your sales channel with greater insight into audience behavior: Understanding the Trends The first trend is a tech-savvy sales team. Greater access to information and exposure to technology are developing a new breed of salespeople. Marketing automation platforms and CRMs are no longer a novelty; they are the standard. And with this standard, the sales team is asking for tools that don’t just collect information. They want visibility into their return on investment, and as a result, sales looks to marketing to connect the dots surrounding the buyer journey and provide insights that will help them prioritize and act on the hottest targets for business. The demand for marketing services is no longer focused solely on the outside alone; there is a new consumer of strategic marketing services–the sales team. The second trend is the convergence of technology. Companies like Google, Amazon, Apple, and other industry leaders have laid the foundation for ubiquitous networks that condition buyers to expect universal access to information. This conditioning starts at young ages, with platforms such as Xbox and PlayStation setting an intrinsic expectation of connected experiences. Add to that the widespread usage of mobile apps, reminding buyers that they can quickly and easily access all kinds of information at the touch of a screen. As a result, marketing has inherited the expectation that insights into buyer behavior should be universally accessible by sales. Similarly, insights should be categorized and prioritized in a way that makes selling to the right audience at the right time as simple as possible. Responding to the Demand for Insights For many marketers, connecting the dots and prioritizing targets can be a daunting task. To start, connecting databases can be an immense challenge if the logic to consolidate and centralize insights around the lead, contact, account, and/or opportunity is missing. Take the standard request to pull together a report around tradeshow results. Many marketing teams can measure aspects of the event, but connecting these results together is oftentimes challenging because legacy marketing systems don’t “talk” to the CRM. The impact is a lot of marketing activity that cannot clearly be linked to revenue. Taking this thought a little further, the marketing systems that manage web activity, campaigns, and content may be disconnected from centralized tracking of customer interactions as well. Pulling together the full history of how a target moved from unknown, to known, to engaged, and then to closed is challenging at best. Addressing the Gaps and Finding your Insights The good news is that growth in ubiquitous platforms has reached the marketing world. Rather than struggling to connect the dots through SQL queries, congested lead routing, and manual scoring, marketing automation platforms are helping marketers define and share insights with sales. Here are three examples of how a solid marketing automation platform can help you answer the call for strategic prioritization of leads: Leading solutions deliver a strong and scalable API. There are a wide variety of systems out there and you need a centralized solution that can handle connecting the many different data points that drive your result. Strengths of a solid platform include (but are not limited to): A wide and open network of partner solutions The ability to connect to multiple types of data sources (e.g. e-commerce, CRM, DMP, etc.) The ability to both consume and act on data inputs Marketing has access to pre-designed and configurable insights that can be shared with sales. As a marketer, you need to be able to identify and highlight behaviors and events that indicate which targets have the highest likelihood to produce revenue. Scoring is important; however, the ability to pass specific events and alerts to your sales team at the optimum buying time is an additional criteria for delivering strategic marketing value. Marketing has access to pre-designed and configurable insights that can be shared with sales. As a marketer, you need to be able to identify and highlight behaviors and events that indicate which targets have the highest likelihood to produce revenue. Scoring is important; however, the ability to pass specific events and alerts to your sales team at the optimum buying time is an additional criteria for delivering strategic marketing value. Connected reporting helps tell the full marketing story which is essential to demonstrating impact. Your ability to show that particular opportunities were the direct result of marketing interactions is one of the primary ways that you can build a successful marketing career. Being able to connect the dots and gauge ROI from specific campaigns based on the full set of marketing interactions along the buyer journey delivers a competitive advantage to savvy marketers. The modern salesperson is used to having any and all types of information at their disposal. As a marketer, your ability to supply these insights with marketing automation can quickly demonstrate the value of your team, campaigns, and investments. Do you see any other trends driving a shift in marketing? Share your insights in the comments below.

By: Chandar Pattabhiram, Marketo Group-SVP of Marketing “Strategy is all about choice,” says Marketo CMO Sanjay Dholakia. Sanjay, a former McKinsey strategist and a master marketer, was referring back to one of the axiomatic insights developed by Harvard Business School guru Michael Porter, who is absolutely right. The essence of strategy is about choosing what we are going to do, thus making the right choice among a set of alternatives. But the most essential and difficult part of strategy is about answering the reverse question, “What we are not going to do?” Many high-achieving executives and their teams are programmed to attack new markets with innovation and strategies to drive success. However, the same leaders find it hard to choose to stop doing something and actually stick with the decision. Procter and Gamble’s former CEO A.G. Lafley and strategy consultant Roger L. Martin wrote an insightful book called Playing to Win, where they describe how they implemented strategy at P&G using Michael Porter’s foundational principles regarding choice and trade-offs. They define strategy as the need to win. And to win, they say, one needs to make clear choices across five areas: What is our winning aspiration? Where will we play? How will we win? What capabilities must be in place? What management systems are required? I want to offer a slightly different way to think about this. After aligning around a common business vision, I believe that the most important question to ask is, “Where will we not play?” In other words, where are we going to stop investing scarce human capital and innovation capital in order to maximize our focus and chances for success? http://www.amazon.com/Positioning-The-Battle-Your-Mind/dp/0071373586What’s a good framework for saying “no”? Let’s consider the following criteria to answer this question: 1. Saying No by Product Market Fit Before hitting the gas on sales and marketing in any segment, we need make sure to have true product-market fit. Do customers truly yearn for the differentiation our products offer? If they do not, walk away and say no to any further sales requests. When I worked at Cast Iron Systems, our initial struggles to clearly answer this question hurt our ability to scale. Our fundamental product differentiation was speed and simplicity. We offered a plug-and-play appliance that connected business applications within days, not months. We enjoyed some early success with Fortune 500 clients in a number of one-off scenarios. So what did we do? We naturally doubled down and created a plan to go after the Fortune 500 market. However, it turned out we were trying to sell the equivalent of an iPod to buyers looking for large, professional-grade stereo systems to run their concerts. The Fortune 500 did not fundamentally yearn for our product differentiation of speed and simplicity – not when compared to other capabilities that they wanted, such as feature-breadth, large volume performance, enterprise-grade security, etc., that traditional middleware vendors provided. It was only when we said no and walked away from this market to focus on the SaaS market – one that yearned for speed and simplicity – that we achieved success. 2. Saying No by Buyer Type Tony Nemelka, who heads up IBM Software in Japan, always reminds me that there are no markets, there are only buyers. “And one needs to really understand truly who the buyer is and align a set of product capabilities that simplify their lives and solve real problems,” he says. Amen, Tony! The converse of this adage applies to companies that target multiple buyer profiles with the same product offering. For example, a software platform company may decide to offer variations of its product for so-called line of business buyers, such as sales, HR, and services as well as IT buyers. This can get dicey. A few established companies have been reasonably successful with this approach. But it can be disastrous for a growing company with a small product portfolio. Imagine the challenges faced by a generic sales team that has to learn how to speak contextually and demonstrate its solution uniquely to each segment? It typically does not end well. The more proven approach for growing companies would be to align a set of capabilities – home-grown and acquired – and target a single customer. Nortel Networks’ acquisition of call center company Clarify in the late 1990s was a classic failed example of what can go wrong. Nortel bought Clarify for $2 billion; barely a year and a half later, Nortel sold Clarify for 10 cents on the dollar to Amdocs. The problem: Clarify’s buyer was a line-of-business executive and very different from the profile that Nortel’s technology sellers were accustomed to selling to. “Nortel had a sales force that had no ability to sell application software," said Laurie Orlov, then research director at Forrester Research. Contrast that example with IBM, which walked away from the application software market in the early-to-mid-90s; IBM’s software head Steve Mills thought it made more sense for Big Blue to focus on one buyer type – the Fortune 500 CIO – and align a set of product capabilities and services to make the CIO successful. It worked marvelously well, and for over 15 years, IBM’s acquisitions and home-grown innovation adhered to the goal of serving the CIO (interestingly, IBM has aggressively come back to the application software market in the past five years). 3. Saying No by Leadership Position I’ll be Captain Obvious here and state that the goal of any company is to win the battle for the minds of the buyer and establish itself as one of the top brands in its market. This is obvious, but never easy. Legendary marketers Al Ries and Jack Trout write about the Law of Duality in their book, “The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing.” In the long run, they note, consumers associate with two main brands for every product category. Google and Apple for phones. Coca-Cola & Pepsi for soda. Nike & Reebok for shoes. Crest & Colgate for toothpaste. This is not true for all categories, nor does it mean that marketers in the No. 3 brand should stop working. However, the key takeaway is that senior management should always honestly evaluate a company’s current market share in any market and the potential to become No.1 or No. 2. And sometimes, the best decision is to say no to a particular market or segment if they can’t reach this potential over the long run. GE’s former boss, Jack Welch, embodied this approach in the 1980s and 90s with his famous “No. 1 or No. 2” strategy. One of Welch’s primary leadership directives was that GE had to “fix, sell, or close” any business where it was not first or second in the market and did not have the potential growth opportunities to get there. Welch applied this principle to sell off $15 billion worth of GE-owned businesses, ranging from housewares to mining operations. At the same time, GE spent $26 billion to acquire companies which were either market leaders or had the potential to reach the top. 4. Saying No by Company DNA A company’s culture establishes its sense of purpose, core values, and fun. It also establishes its ability to successfully serve a market segment. Broadly speaking, a company’s DNA is primarily either enterprise-centric or consumer-centric. Problems crop up when companies refuse to recognize their dominant gene and attempt to equally participate in both markets. HP struggled with this question for years and couldn’t decide whether it was a consumer-centric or enterprise-centric brand. That led to confusion and cost the company dearly. HP ultimately reorganized into two separate entities – a strategy that significantly improves its chances for future success. By contrast, Cisco more quickly recognized its corporate DNA and sold or shut down its consumer businesses to concentrate on doing what it does best. Choose Carefully So there you have it, four strategic options to consider and evaluate to answer the question, “What should we not do?” Your answers and their follow-through may be more crucial to your business’s success than any other decision you face. Remember that strategy is all about choice. As Jack Welch famously noted, “You pick a general direction and implement it like hell.” And as his storied career made clear, it’s up to leaders to carefully select the corporate initiatives that they want to push through. You can toss the other stuff into the trash basket.

By: Jim Kowalski Posted: April 20, 2016 | Engagement Marketing My wife recently had an outpatient procedure at one of the best hospitals in the country. Thankfully, everything went well; and our experience at the hospital was first-class. But as I drove us home and struggled to remember most of the instructions we were given post-op, the marketer in me began to think about ways hospitals can use engagement marketing techniques and technologies to better improve the patient discharge experience and drive significant financial benefits at the same time. The Potential According to data from Medicare, at least 20% of patients who are discharged from hospitals or other medical facilities make a repeat visit. The costs of these re-admissions exceed $17 billion per year and are growing. Spurred on by the penalties and other provisions for re-admission in the Affordable Care Act, hospitals, consultants, industry experts, and others are all seeking ways to reduce this number. While not a panacea, one simple solution is better patient engagement and education throughout the process. Industry studies have shown that patients who have a clear understanding of after-care instructions are 30% less likely to re-admit. When you’re talking the health and happiness of patients and billions of dollars in potential savings, any chance at improvement should be seriously considered. And sometimes, the simplest can be the most effective. The Payoff At Marketo, our teams work with healthcare providers from all across the country to create ways to better engage with new and returning patients, nurture them through the entire experience, educate them, and even engage their family caregivers to improve the overall quality of their experience. These customers and those who use marketing automation and engagement technologies see a wide range of financial benefits, including a significant reduction in patient re-admission rates. A good example of this is Kindred Healthcare, a Kentucky-based post-acute care provider. Using marketing automation technology, Kindred has been able to improve engagement with patients and caregivers through targeted, relevant content that answers the major questions healthcare providers are asking. The results in a short period of time are impressive: a 4.1% reduction in re-hospitalization from transition care facilities and a 5.1% reduction in re-hospitalization from nursing and rehabilitation facilities. Other providers I’ve spoken with report another additional benefit. As family caregivers engage in the content and education provided, they are more apt to choose the same hospital for any elective surgeries or procedures they have coming up as well. Hospitals are reporting higher satisfaction rates as patients and family members have more content at their fingertips. So what are the lessons we can glean from healthcare? Well, they aren’t isolated to that industry. In fact, marketers can apply them anywhere: Relevant content and messaging are critical—and so is the ability to deliver them with an understanding of who your individual customer is. Kindred Healthcare started by surveying their audiences to understand what their biggest concerns are and then developed content that addresses them. Build loyalty and advocacy over time because happy customers drive referrals. This is true of any business model—business-to-business or business-to-consumer. Your customers are your prospects, too. In fact, research from Teradata shows that 61% of people would to tell their friends and family about their good experiences and that 27% would sign up for a company’s loyalty program. Engage customers continuously over time—with messages and content relevant to their situation that drives them toward a desired action or outcome. Being mindful of who your audience is and what resonates with them the most will help push them further along in the customer lifecycle. And these steps are all made simpler for the marketer with the right technology. In an industry so complex, it’s refreshing to see that there are still simple solutions that can drive so much value across the entire customer lifecycle, from awareness of a medical facility to post-discharge. Now, if I can just find that piece of paper they gave me, so I know when to give her that medicine…

By: Sam Harkness Posted: April 19, 2016 | B2B Marketing Want to close 20 consecutive quarters on plan? Any interest in a 63% win rate? Need another 1,000 registrants for your next webinar? If you haven’t seen Moneyball, you should. Based on Michael Lewis’s book on the Oakland A’s incredible 2002 season, Moneyball is the kind of movie you can watch 15 times, but then still get excited for when it pops up on Netflix. The movie blends together fan favorite themes of competition, analytics, and the underdog-taking-on-the-system. Marketing and sales teams face challenges eerily similar to the Oakland A’s in 2002: never enough budget, lofty goals, and pressure to win. The Winning Moneyball Formula In Moneyball, Jonah Hill plays the biographical character Peter Brand, the A’s newest assistant GM and soft-spoken economics geek from Yale. In one of the great scenes of the movie, the Moneyball formula emerges as Brand begins to transform the way the A’s leadership approaches winning baseball games. After the A’s lost several of their best players to competitors with 3x the payroll, they had no other choice but to pivot and try something new. “People who run ball clubs, they think in terms of buying players. Your goal shouldn’t be to buy players. Your goal should be to buy wins. And in order to buy wins, you need to buy runs.” So how did the Oakland A’s put this concept into action? Their first step was to focus on recruiting and starting players with a high on-base percentage (OBP). Rather than trying to replace their best players’ batting averages, they instead focused on replacing their best players’ OBP. One example included signing a former catcher, Scott Hatteberg. This guy couldn’t really throw the ball anymore (post injury), but he could still catch it, and he had a great OBP. Hatteberg was their new first baseman. By prioritizing OBP over BA, the Oakland A’s elevated one of the most unsexy metrics in baseball: the “walk.” Baseball dictionary for the uninitiated: getting walked is when a batter takes four pitches outside the strike zone, and then advances to first base without an “out.” To walk more = to get on base more = to score more runs = to win more. As the Moneyball formula kicked in the Oakland A’s went on a tear, winning 20 consecutive games and finishing the season with 103 wins and 59 losses. The A’s earned the second best winning percentage in the American League (63%), and got there on a shoestring budget, spending just $260,000 per win vs. the Yankees’ $1,000,000 per win. Moneyball Marketing How do you apply the Moneyball formula drive more efficiency and revenue into your business? As an example, two basic metrics typically captured by marketing and sales include opportunities created and opportunities closed. When you divide these two metrics into one, you get an even better picture of your business known as “win rate.” Think of win rate in business as the equivalent to batting average in baseball. If you open 10 opportunities and close 5 every month, that’s a great win rate; you’re batting .500. But if you open 10 opportunities and close 1 every month, that’s a bad win rate; you’re batting .100. But what is the OBP equivalent in the business world? Or better yet, what is the business equivalent to getting more walks in baseball? Walking more in baseball translates to partnering more in business. Leveraging a partner for a warm intro and endorsement to a decision maker–that’s a walk. Asking a partner for help in an industry where they’re stronger than you–instant credibility, and less expensive. Investing in your partners and making their success and your success synonymous….now we’re getting it. Marketing example: Our marketing team recently leveraged eight partners to help drive over 1,000 registrants to a Marketo-hosted webinar. If half of those registrants show up (500) and we close only 1%, that’s still five new customer wins with partners. Sales example: Three of the largest deals we closed recently included highly influential strategic alliances. Our experienced sales team outsourced the implementation and consulting services revenue to a partner, while earning software revenue at 3x the average enterprise deal size. Each deal included a motivated partner working hard to make it happen. That’s Moneyball. Follow these five Moneyball tips to win big with partners: 1. Give, then Get The first principal of economics: People. Face. Trade-offs. As a company, every dollar you spend on project A is a dollar not spent on project B. This zero sum game demands that companies carefully balance partner interests against their own. If you can build incentives for your partners to help you (while sometimes sacrificing your own immediate self interest), in return, you may have the opportunity to build a “force multiplier.” A force multiplier is a factor that dramatically increases your scale and effectiveness as a company. Think of how many marketing and sales people you employ, and then add in the number of employees within your partner ecosystem. This incremental lift and multiplier can be a beautiful thing when you’re competing against companies 3x your size. 2. Focus & Specialization Hiring people is expensive, and there’s a point of diminishing returns for every company. It’s simply impossible to hire for every needed specialty in every industry in every country. Instead of spending six figures on a full-time, subject matter expert, why not recruit a partner with established expertise and incentivize them to help you? Marketo recently built a task force with an agency that has unique expertise in a specific industry. We didn’t have to go out and hire a team of experts. Instead, we focused in on this partner and made a conscious effort to include them early and often in the sales process. As a result, we’ve closed more deals in that industry in the last 12 months than in our entire history as a company. 3. All Hands on Deck There are three key pillars to any productive partnership program: Recruitment: Identifying and recruiting highly specialized partners Enablement: Training and nurturing partners to unlock holistic value (1+1=3) Commitment: Establishing and providing incentives for both partners and internal stakeholders to rally behind a “better together” strategy The number one partner momentum killer is “channel conflict.” Channel conflict occurs when marketing and sales compete with their channel partners’ area of expertise. Competition is a good thing–it raises the bar on quality and drives price down–but it needs to be refereed with crisp rules of engagement. Compensation drives behavior, and the most effective lever in driving a partner-friendly ecosystem is to incentivize your stakeholders to play nice in the sandbox. This step is absolutely, positively, mission critical. 4. No “Barney” Meetings Remember Barney? “I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family…” Barney meetings with partners are not okay. These are particularly common among prospective partner discussions. As a rule of thumb, you can expect that at least 80% of these Barney meetings with partners will be a waste of time. To mitigate this, build a process that automates the discovery stage with partner prospects. At Marketo, we’ve built a partnership program with a number of prerequisites that help set the bar for a successful partnership. A thorough, automated certification program with thoughtful prerequisites can help filter out false positives. 5. Measure Success How do you ensure partner contribution is widely recognized within your company? A clear gauge on partner progress with high visibility throughout the company is a fundamental need for any marketing and sales organization looking to build a force multiplier. Start with a baseline and ensure your measurement system is widely adopted, simple, and always improving. At Marketo, we’ve tried a variety of partner success metrics (average deal size, customer retention, time to close, etc.), and we’re constantly tweaking and evaluating their true impact on our business. A world-class partner program should promote equal parts specialization, balanced investment, and bi-directional revenue contribution. Here’s a simple barometer to help you get started in measuring your top partners: Overall, what I love about Moneyball is similar to what I love about business: our challenges are analogous. We have to be resourceful, creative, and approach the game differently in order to win. So if you’re a marketing or sales professional, try leaning into your partner ecosystem and invest in a force multiplier to beat the competition. Play Moneyball! If this was helpful and you’re interested in learning more about Marketo’s evolving partner-first culture, or how to build your own Moneyball playbook, join me for my session, Marketo Moneyball, Building a Partner-First Culture, at the 2016 Marketing Nation Summi