Product Documents

By: Chris Gillespie Posted: January 25, 2016 | Sales Have you ever photocopied a piece of paper so many times that the copies faded and became hard to read? This is called a transcription error, and it happens when little mistakes add up over time to make a big difference. This also happens in sales when you repeat your pitch over and over again until small details get lost, the delivery gets muddied, and your pitch loses its edge and effectiveness. Once a quarter, it’s important to reset your habits to make sure that you’re not falling victim to this process. Essentially, you need to get back to the basics and start fresh. A big part of this refresh involves motivating yourself. Do you remember the bright and shiny optimism that you felt when you first started your job? How absolutely certain you were about your product? How you looked up to the more tenured salespeople and picked their brains to find out what they were doing differently? To dial in on this energy, you need to do assess yourself to determine what you’re doing well and poorly. So use this checklist to see how you stack up. If you start to feel a little inadequate, that’s great! You’ve identified the key areas that you need to work on, and there’s reassurance in knowing exactly what you need to do. And if you’re not selling more than you want to be (who is, really?), then this gives you a clear path forward to start the quarter with a crisp, clean page. Goals 1. Are my goals written down and up-to-date? Goals change over time, so it’s a good idea to revisit them. Keeping them consistent is good so you can track your progress, but it’s okay to tweak them occasionally. People learn as they go, and you shouldn’t stick to anything that doesn’t still make sense. Write your goals down, keep them visible, and share them with peers to hold yourself accountable. Don’t have any goals written down from last quarter? There’s never a better time to start than now. Sample goals: Achieve a 35% closed-won opportunity conversion by April 1 Hit 110% of year-to-date plan by April 1 Generate 3 new outbound sales opportunities each month, 9 per quarter this year 2. Am I on-track with my goals? Did I reach them? If not, where can I improve? Keep yourself honest. Many people set goals, but very few people keep them (just look at gym attendance in January versus February). Make sure your goals are SMART (simple, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound). This is a great article if you’re interested in the specifics on goal setting. Process 3. Am I following a template for discovery calls, or have I gotten lazy and just started winging it? What about my emails? This is where those nasty transcription errors start slipping in. I’ve found that over time, I may forget to do basic things like set agendas for my discovery calls, and then run into issues where we don’t cover the right topics in order (or at all). If your company doesn’t have a defined template, try your hand at making one. Consolidating your tried-and-true best practices into a template can be a great team exercise. 4. Did I refresh my prospecting emails and content links? The content that you share with your prospects can become stale, and links can get broken or outdated. Make sure that you’re not sending around any whitepapers from 2011 or videos that don’t work. This is a great time to check-in with the marketing team to see what new and exciting content you can share. 5. Am I still looking for leads in the same places? It might just be part of the nature of being a salesperson, but there’s a certain sense of fear that comes over you when you feel like you’ve run out of leads. Either you’re account-based and telling your boss “I need the Glengarry leads!” or you’re territory-based and you’re convinced that you’ve already sold to every single company in the state of New Jersey. Whether you’re a small start-up or large enterprise, you’re probably wrong. The total addressable market of territories—even mid-sized companies—is tens of thousands of leads. What’s really happened is that you’ve “photocopied” the same prospecting idea so many times that it’s become a blank piece of paper. So get a new piece of paper!Refresh your approach by having someone else take a look at what you’ve done and poke holes in it. Have you tried looking at the competitors of companies you’ve sold to? Have you tried looking at companies that your current customers have previously worked for? I promise you, the issue is not in the number of leads available, but your mindset. If you are able to shift it, you’ll magically start seeing new lists and thinking up new sources.Here’s a good exercise to help you find your focus: List off all of the deals that you won in the last quarter. Did the majority of your deals come from one vertical, region, or account? If there’s a noticeable trend, prioritize your efforts in the new quarter on that. And don’t forget to ask your now happy customers for referrals! 6. Am I utilizing all of my tools? Are you utilizing all of your sales channels or have you defaulted to just sending emails when you could be calling? If it’s the latter, create a goal for yourself to rectify that. A successful rep uses every available channel, so optimize your outbound prospecting strategy.Don’t forget about the tools that your company provides that you may not be taking advantage of. Some examples include data sources, partner co-selling, and email marketing tools. If none of these exist, be an innovator and start doing your own. Find a list of partners and start building a relationship with them to see if you can pass each other leads or help each other close deals.And there are personal skills and tools—what about your company’s learning-reimbursement program? Most companies will pay you to take classes in related areas that can either deepen your current skills or prepare you for your next role. Sales Skills 7. Am I selling to the best of my ability? Your selling skill is another place where transcription errors come into play, so have your colleagues listen to one of your cold calls and provide honest feedback. As salespeople, we may stop doing things by the book over time, including important parts of a call like up-front contracts, agendas, and staying on client’s calendars. Identify which fundamentals you need to touch up on, and nothing helps you do this faster than an impartial outside perspective.If you’re truly interested in improving, show your colleagues your worst calls. Don’t be shy, your colleagues feedback can only help you and will encourage a supportive relationship. Only sharing the best ones is like inviting guests in through the back door because the front of the house is on fire. 8. What are the top skills that I need to work on? As a salesperson, you’re probably well aware of your strengths and use these to your advantage whenever you can. But it’s just as important to identify your weaknesses and improve on them so that you can truly become invincible.To identify the skills you need to work on, draw a table with two columns like I’ve done for myself below. In the left column, list off all of your lost opportunities, and then in the right column, list all of the reasons why they didn’t close. Which ones occurred the most? Other examples: Not qualified properly Didn’t build a relationship Competitor told a better story Pricing Next to each reason, list the frequency, and then come up with ways to improve. Team Building 9. Did I make time for my team outside of work? Team building is crucial to building and developing relationships with your peers, but when things get busy, group activities are typically the first thing on the chopping block. Change this by getting lunch with your team and making time outside of work to catch up with them. Strong team ties can help you close deals. 10. Did I get to know people outside of my department? It’s extremely important for your success in sales to be aligned with departments beyond your own; you never know when you’re going to have to approach engineering or support with a question. By building these relationships early, you can avoid bothering them at the eleventh hour of your deal cycle when you’re completely frantic and begging for help. Tackle all of these one-by-one to set yourself up for a fantastic quarter. Remember, no matter how good of a salesperson you are, all skills are perishable and fade over time. If you’ve just been photocopying the same pitch over and over for too many months now, it’s guaranteed to missing some key details. Do yourself a favor and turn over a new page. ­ What other things should be on this checklist? Let me know in the comments below!

Celebrate Women's History Month with the Marketing Nation Community! Join us in paying tribute to the generations of women whose commitment to nature and the planet have proved invaluable to society. Each week we'll have a new community challenge. The post with the most 'likes' during that week will win a $50 Amazon Gift Card. To be eligible to win you must: Have your profile *completely* set up, including photo, avatar, bio city and state. Post during the correct week, indicated below. (i.e Discussions about the influential woman that are posted the following week won't be eligible) Make sure posts are tagged with #WHM2016 Follow the guidelines below! Winners are peer selected and will be chosen based on number of 'likes' on the post, so please, VOTE VOTE VOTE! View the instructions below! COMPLETE. March 7 - March 11: Comment in this thread in Marketing Central of who the most influential woman in your life is and why. WINNER: ​. You can view the entries here: Most influential woman in my life is... COMPLETE. March 14 - March 18: Post a blog in our Women in Business section about any Women in Business / Technology related topic. Read our ​ first and then GET BLOGGING! Some ideas for topics are: a customer success story, comment on something going on in the news, pose your own question, provide your tips and tricks for success, or report on something interesting you learned at a conference. WINNER: Dory Viscogliosi COMPLETE. March 21 - March 25: Nominate a woman in YOUR organization who you think is making history by commenting in this thread in Marketing Central. She could be paving the way for other women to be successful, showing strong leadership across the organization, or producing stellar results and killing it in their job! Whatever the reason, nominate and let community decide the winner. (*Note, there are two winners for this challenge. The person who writes the nomination AND the person nominated will each receive a $50 gift card!) WINNERS: ​ and her nomination ​ COMPLETE. March 28 - April 1: Post a discussion in Marketing Central and share details about your favorite organization that promotes or helps women in technology. WINNER: with her post about Bad Girl Ventures​ What is Women's History Month​? The roots of National Women’s History Month go back to March 8, 1857, when women from New York City factories staged a protest over working conditions. International Women’s Day was first observed in 1909, but it wasn’t until 1981 that Congress established National Women’s History Week to be commemorated the second week of March. In 1987, Congress expanded the week to a month. Every year since, Congress has passed a resolution for Women’s History Month, and the President has issued a proclamation.

MARKETO IN THE NEWS Mass marketing to engagement marketing is required (translated) Advertimes (Japan) This article resulted from an interview our Japan team secured for Phil. In the piece, Phil highlihgts that the expansion of digital has changed the relationship with customers and introduces the concept of "Engagement Marketing." Visa Inc. Appoints Lynne Biggar as Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Press Release Marketo board member Lynne Biggar will join the company as Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, effective February 1. She will also serve as a member of the company’s Executive Committee and Operating Committee. Ms. Biggar joins Visa from Time Inc. where she was the Executive Vice President, Consumer Marketing & Revenue. Digital Marketing’s New Future, According to Marketo’s CMO MSN Sanjay’s “Ask the CMO” Q&A was picked up by MSN video. What Does Your Desk Say About You? The State Of Your Workspace Might Reveal More Than You Think — INFOGRAPHIC Bustle Additional pick-up of the Marketo-generated infographic. CUSTOMERS & PARTNERS IN THE NEWS How a small design tweak got millions more people to use one of Facebook's products Business Insider Facebook has long been the social login leader, according to Gigya data, but the company recently made a small design tweak that hugely boosted its number of new logins. Facebook’s Deb Liu, VP of Platform, says that simplifying permissions, changing the look and feel of login dialogs, and advances on the review side led to a "significantly improved" click-through-rate for logins last year. Facebook gives brands more ways to convince you to sign up for news VentureBeat Facebook’s lead ads are getting an update. The company announced that several changes are coming to the ad format that lets people easily sign up for more information around a specific campaign. Starting today, advertisers can tweak their ads so that they’re more contextual, both with a new information card and images, thanks to the new carousel format. Marketo is listed as a key partner. How marketers are using Facebook's direct messaging apps Marketing Dive Even though Facebook Messenger and Facebook--owned WhatsApp don’t allow for third-party advertising, brands are making use of the direct-message apps for marketing. Interview with Alicianne Rand, VP Marketing - NewsCred MarTech Advisor This Marketo partner highlights Marketo as a key component of its news stack, saying that its connection with Salesforce CRM has given NewsCred the ability to understand exactly what content is influencing prospects, customer upsells, and revenue. The company’s end goal (today and going into 2016) is to produce more of the stuff that works -- not just the content that drives top-line growth, but also content that helps them close deals. #FlipMyFunnel #ABM Innovators: Featured Speaker Q&A with Adam New-Waterson Customer Think LeanData’s CMO – who spoke at RKO – spotlights Marketo as one of the primary tools that has helped the company implement and execute ABM. INDUSTRY NEWS 12 questions to ask marketing automation vendors (before you buy) CMO (AU) This widely syndicated piece (first appeared on CIO.com) recommends what you should ask vendors when building your marketing technology stack. CES 2016 Ends with Critical Takeaways for the Marketing and Ad Tech Sectors MarTech Advisor The Consumer Electronics Show, also known as CES, has offered some major insights about the future of marketing and advertising technology. With more than 170,000 attendees from various industries, the event brought forth some ground-breaking innovations in IoT, computing technologies, programmatic advertising, virtual reality, and more. Brave: New Ad Blocking Browser Promises More Privacy & Faster Page Loading Marketing Land Brave speeds up page loading by blocking ads and tracking technologies: cookies, pixels, fingerprinting and scripts.  It will have ads, just not those that “target ads based on browser-side intent signals phrased in a standard vocabulary, and without a persistent user ID or highly re-identifiable cookie.” In this way, Brave seeks to strike a balance between publishers, marketers and privacy. Predictive analytics drives almost 3 times B2B revenue growth: Study Marketing Dive In a new study,  78% of respondents reporting marketing's role has expanded from demand generation to also include deal acceleration. 10 trends in B2B marketing - In with the old, out with the new? The Drum The evolving B2B marketing trends reveal that tried and true strategies like email campaigns are back in vogue while the term ‘digital advertising’ is outdated. With content marketing, marketing automation, paid amplification and mobile optimization seen as emerging trends, ad blocking and BOT- fraud will increasingly pose challenges to B2B marketers. Here are ten B2B marketing trends to be on the look out for. Adware shunned from online advertisers’ leadership bash ITProPortal Adware, the online advertising blocking company, says that it has been uninvited from an advertising industry confab after the Interactive Advertising Bureau withdrew its approval for Adware to attend the Annual Leadership bash in California this weekend. Why Cross-Device Programmatic Advertising Is Ready to Take Off in 2016 Ad Week Consumers increasingly get their content across smartphones, laptops and desktops, so brands are eager to run campaigns that reach consumers on every one of those screens. With technology catching up to demand, marketers are predicting that 2016 will be cross-device programmatic's great leap forward. The era of targeting only to a particular device appears to be on the way out. Medical publishers eye new ad viewability rules Medical Marketing & Media A group of medical publishers will attempt to develop a new industry standard for digital advertising viewability, a much debated topic that has vexed the broader advertising industry. Viewability—how long is long enough for a user to have viewed a digital ad successfully—has cropped up in recent years as one of the more challenging media issues, and one that needs to be addressed as the business of digital advertising matures. In healthcare, experts say, it's no different. Building the marketing technology stack Diginomica This piece from Diginomica urges marketers to focus on the customer, use data effectively, and produce content that will actually move the needle. Ad tech M&A continues to rise as investors continue to pummel stock prices The Drum Ad tech acquisitions surged between Q3 and Q4 last year, with such providers accounting for almost a third of all M&A deals in all of the ad tech/martech sector during the final quarter of last year, according to a study from Results International. Intent-driven marketing: how hard is it really? AdNews Massive amounts of intent data are available to marketers, and now is the time to lean on this information to improve business outcomes. This piece explores type of experience can consumers can expect from intent-driven marketing. Which Brands Are Creating the Future of Digital Marketing? Content Standard At CES 2016 earlier this month, one of the big storylines among leading enterprises was the aggressive efforts to invest in artificial intelligence. Those efforts have been characterized as an innovative move, yet also something of a gamble, since the exact uses and value of AI remain unclear. But marketers are certain AI has a place in digital marketing‘s future, and those forward-thinking experts see plenty of value in the AI infrastructures those brands are looking to build. Deutsch Vets Open Creative Agency With Investment Arm Advertising Age Adland vets Mike Duda and Brent Vartan have opened an agency called Bullish Inc. and they want to have skin in the game with every client. Within the agency, which will focus on brand strategy and creative execution, each account will operate on a pay-for-performance compensation model. For some clients, that could mean a bonus based on meeting key performance indicators, such as sales, brand shift and advocacy. For others, it may mean a return on taking equity in the client's business. Snapchat's the most popular social platform for new ad campaigns: Study Marketing Dive According to eMarketer, a Cowen and Company survey of senior U.S. ad buyers on what social media platform they expected to begin advertising on in 2016 for the first time shows Snapchat led the list at 22%, trailed significantly by Instagram and Pinterest at 12%. In research from last September, RBC Capital Markets and Advertising Age found that Instagram was the leading social media platform for interest in allocating ad budgets this year at 72%. That survey had Snapchat in third place at 36%. MARKETING AUTOMATION HINDERED BY CLASSIC DATA ISSUES; OPENPRISE'S 2016 MARTECH DATA REPORT REVEALS Press Release Openprise, a data automation SaaS company, issued its inaugural 2016 MarTech Data Report today. Based on an online survey that gathered insights from more than 400 U.S. sales and marketing professionals, the report examines trends in data management and marketing automation, as well as 2016 MarTech priorities and challenges. How Data-Enhanced Storytelling Is Rapidly Reshaping Both Content and Advertising Ad Week In its inaugural gathering Thursday, Digital Storytelling, a newly sanctioned event of the Sundance Film Festival, ambitiously set out to better link brand marketers with digital content creators as well as discuss how return on investment on that content will grow and evolve beyond interruptive advertising models.

this is an example doc used in this post that shows how to create successful nurture programs Lead Nurture: Tradeshow Prospects (EXAMPLE) Overview 4 touch email campaign for new tradeshow leads, to encourage product adoption. Hypothesis By sending a 4 touch email nurture to our tradeshow leads, they will be more likely to create an account than if they weren’t sent it. By staying top of mind after the tradeshow is over, leads will be curious to explore what Optimizely can offer. Baseline Conversion Out of all tradeshow leads created last year (10,000), 20% of them created an account (2000). Goal Increase create account conversion by 15% (2300 leads for current year) Baseline conversion = 20% (2000 leads) Audience New leads coming from tradeshows. (target audience around 10k leads for this year). Content Cadence: 1x week over 30 days Email Content​ Notes

this is an example doc used in this post that shows how to create successful nurture programs Lead Nurture: Email Content (EXAMPLE) Drop Date: MM/DD/YYYY Reviewers: Final Approval: Overview Purpose: Audience: Hypothesis: Success Metric: Overall Messaging: General Information From Name Optimizely TEST From Email email@optimizelytest.com Reply Email email@optimizelytest.com Tracking Link ?utm_source=x&utm_medium=x&utm_campaign=x&utm_content=x http:// CTA link http:// Emails Email 1 subject_line preheader_text email_header_1 email_body_1 cta_text email_body_2 Email 2 subject_line preheader_text email_header_1 email_body_1 cta_text email_body_2 Email 3 subject_line preheader_text email_header_1 email_body_1 cta_text email_body_2 Email 4 subject_line preheader_text email_header_1 email_body_1 cta_text email_body_2

By: Kylie Ora Lobell Posted: February 1, 2016 | Content Marketing Great content should be at the core of your marketing initiatives, but to produce this content, you need to hire talented creators. If you own a small to medium-sized business, you may not have the budget to take on a staff of full-time writers, photographers, videographers, graphic designers, or developers. This is where freelance employees come into play. With freelancers, you can save money on operational costs since you don’t need to provide benefits or workspace. Plus, you can pick and choose whom you want on your content creation team from a pool of freelancers around the world. By not depending on local workers, you’re able to put together a diverse team from a variety of backgrounds and niches. However, if you’re going to be integrating a number of different freelancers into your company, you need the right tools to manage them efficiently. These are five types of tools that you can utilize to ensure that your content marketing campaigns stay organized and drive results: 1. Finding freelancers Doing a Google search or finding referrals for freelancers is a time-consuming process. Instead, you can look at job boards where top talent congregates. One example is the Upwork platform, which gives you the opportunity to find freelancers for every type of content creation. There are more than 10 million independent workers from over 180 countries on the site. Once hired, you can message back and forth with your freelancers, create milestones they have to meet, and pay them through the site. Another site for finding workers is MediaBistro, where you can either post jobs or browse through the talent on the site. All freelancers list their resumes, samples, and experience, which means you can vet them before making contact. To find freelance bloggers specifically, try ProBlogger, where you can list your jobs and gain access to bloggers who are actively looking to be hired. 2.Blogging Without a solid content management system in place, you’ll have a difficult time overseeing all your freelancers and their work. Going back and forth through emails and Google docs won’t cut it. Instead, you need to find a blogging platform that works for you and your team. WordPress is a classic choice for content creation. Aside from being free, it includes a variety of plugins that optimize your blog for SEO and promotional purposes. All your freelance writers have to do is log into your website’s WordPress account, copy and paste in their work, and fill in all the correct SEO information through the Yoast SEO plugin. Then, the post will show up in your queue. Once it’s submitted, you and your editors can go in, edit the piece, and hit publish. This way, your writers don’t need to email you their work, which ends up making more work for you because you have to manually load it in. Also, it’s much easier to organize all the work your freelancers have completed. An alternative to WordPress is Google’s Blogger, which is also a free and simple to use platform. It contains gadgets as opposed to WordPress’ widgets, and includes Google integrations like AdSense and Analytics, allowing you to easily monetize your company blog and monitor traffic. 3. Invoicing and tracking hours Working with so many freelancers can become complicated, and it’s important for you to evaluate how much money is being spent vs. how much is being generated through your efforts. Without a centralized platform, you’re going to be lost. One option is Due.com, which can assist you with the logistical side of overseeing your freelancers and their pay. This platform has time tracking and invoice tools that allow you to view how many hours your freelancers are working and what invoices you need to take care of. It also generates detailed reports so you know where you are in terms of your finances. Another platform for managing freelancers financially is Zenefits, which gives you peace of mind that your independent contractors are being paid on time. You can input how much time freelancers spent working and make sure they’re receiving their benefits (if you provide any for them). If you’re running a small operation, Zenefits eliminates the need for hiring HR talent. 4. Managing projects If you have multiple freelancers working on one project and there are many different elements to keep track of, you need a project management system. BaseCamp is a popular choice for project management. Through this tool, you and your team can upload files and store your collective to-do lists. It shows who worked on which project and when. Whenever a project is updated, those that are involved are sent emails so they can go in and complete their assigned tasks. You might also want to try Smartsheet, which is customizable project management software used by companies like Hilton, Groupon, and Netflix. It’s a great option if your business is utilizing spreadsheets in order to complete projects. Another option is Zoho Projects (pictured below), which comes with a timeline that’s similar to a social media feed. You can quickly scroll through it and see where you’re at with tasks. You can also integrate it with Dropbox and use it on your Android or iPhone. 5. Tracking blog posts and progress If a project management system is too complicated for what you want to do, you can work on a free or low cost tool that is strictly used to oversee your blog. Trello is a simple tool if you’re just getting started with freelancers. It’s also perfect for small teams. All you do is create boards for your freelancers and then make individual cards to ensure that each project is progressing. This platform lets you drag and drop files and include pictures and links, so it’s easy to use even for those who aren’t technologically savvy. You might also want to look into BamBam!, a platform that includes milestones and newsfeeds for your projects and is free for 10 users or less. If you’re a startup but you want project management that’s suitable for the corporate world, BamBam! may be the right choice for you. Of course, there are more robust content platforms that integrate with your marketing automation platform and offer two or more of these capabilities with one piece of software. These platforms often are an investment worth making because they will scale and grow with your business. Freelancers can greatly enhance your content creation campaigns. Once you have the best tools in your back pocket to manage them, you’ll be on your way to coming up with successful ideas that produce a huge ROI for your company. What other tools do you use to manage your freelance team of content creators? Let me know in the comments section below.

Originally published on Econsultancy.com By Jack Simpson @ Econsultancy Sounds like a buzzword, but actually makes a lot of sense. Data visualization is the art of presenting often complex datasets in a visually engaging way. 
The hope is that presenting data in this way will make it more engaging and easier to understand, so it’s particularly helpful in terms of speaking to clients or internal stakeholders.  With this in mind, I’ve brought together 14 of my favourite data visualization examples from across the web. Why is data visualization important? In his 2010 TED talk, David McCandless argued that sight has by far the fastest and biggest bandwidth of any of the five senses. About 80% of the information we take in is by eye, he said. Students get very excited – and policy-makers and the corporate sector – when they can see the data. Researchers Emre Soyer and Robin Hogarth conducted a study in which three groups of economists were asked the same question concerning a dataset, and the results seem to support McCandless's claim: One group was given the data and a standard statistical analysis of the data; 72% of these economists got the answer wrong. Another group was given the data, the statistical analysis, and a graph; still 61% of these economists got the answer wrong. A third group was given only the graph, and only 3% got the answer wrong. The above results suggest that the visualized data on its own, without the accompanying analysis, was actually the most powerful format. But let me take my own advice and provide some visual examples... The internet in real time Slightly terrifying, this one, but it’s a goodie. A real-time visualization of data from all the biggest sites on the internet. Even if you work in digital, prepare to be amazed. Battle of the internet giants By the same people as the internet in real time site above, this one shows you how much money all the big boys in digital are making. In real time. Excuse me while I have a cry. The one million tweet map This is a good one for checking out geographical data for Twitter. It uses a clustering engine to visualize how people are tweeting about specific topics around the world. In the image below the keyword was ‘Terry Wogan’. Tweetping Live display of people tweeting across the world, but it leaves the ‘pings’ in place so the longer you watch the map the clearer the geographical trends become. Listen to Wikipedia Perhaps my favourite example on this list: a live visual and musical representation of Wikipedia edits. Bells indicate additions and string plucks indicate subtractions, and the pitch changes according to the size of the edit (the larger the edit, the deeper the note). Green circles show edits from unregistered contributors and purple circles mark edits performed by automated bots. 
It’s strangely addictive, so click that link only if you’re prepared to spend your entire day watching and listening to dots. You have been warned. Google Trends We’ve written about Google Trends plenty of times on this blog, but this little bit of data visualization is wonderfully Google-like in its simplicity. It fills the screen with live trends and when you click on the text you’re taken to a Google SERP for that keyword. Earth wind map You don’t need to be a geography buff to appreciate this. A live visualization of wind around the world: direction, speed, and so on. You can drag the globe around and zoom in on specific points for greater detail. Just awesome. NOAA weatherView More weather visualization, except this one allows you to see representations of various types of weather data such as temperature, precipitation, pressure and so on. Every noise at once A scattergraph plot of almost any musical genre you can think of. When you click on any of the text you get a 30-second clip of a song in that genre. Its creator – Glenn McDonald of Spotify-acquired Echo Nest – explains the organisation of the genres as follows: Down is more organic, up is more mechanical and electric; left is denser and more atmospheric, right is spikier and bouncier. No Homophobia This site provides live visualization of all the homophobic language being used on Twitter, including live tweets containing homophobic keywords. Digital attack map This shows you where DDoS attacks are happening around the world, which is an attempt to make an online service unavailable by overwhelming it with traffic from multiple sources. Not sure if I completely understand it, but damn if it doesn’t look and sound cool. Flight misery map A handy one for any travellers. Hover over an airport and get a neat little visualization of all outbound flights and their status. Green means good and red means bad. Can’t ask for simpler than that. Spotify musical map An interactive map that shows what music people are listening to in towns and cities across the world. London is mostly big on grime right now, apparently. World population Ridiculously simple but still kind of mesmerising, this site shows the world population increasing in real time. Click ‘watch as we increase’ to see the little stickmen appear in real time.  

MARKETO IN THE NEWS The 7 best marketing automation features in Marketo CIO This very positive article includes a few paragraphs providing an overview of Marketo, including a mention of our 10-year anniversary, before highlighting our ‘mobile tools,’ the Marketing Nation, and other features.  The section on ‘Marketing Nation’, #5, is a great summary and key differentiator. The story features comments from Marketo customers including our friend Jennifer Clegg at CA Technologies and partner Justin Gray at LeadMD. ·       The article was also syndicated in MIS Asia. 4 key marketing automation features Marketo lacks CIO The second article focused on features that customers would like to see Marketo improve. Unfortunately, the title was written by an editor and not the journalist who had written the article. One of the improvements has actually been nullified as we have since added that feature in a new release. Expect all of our competitors to receive the same dual-article coverage. ·       The article was also syndicated in ComputerWorld Singapore. Ten Years of Marketo CMS Critic This piece states that with clients like Intel and Acquia, Marketo has grown into one of the most trusted marketing automation systems on the market. The 4 marketing (r) evolutions expected in 2016 gpomag.fr (France) We’ve had some more coverage on our ‘predictions for 2016’ piece, making this 16 pieces of coverage on this in France in total. The most recent piece has been published in, the online version of GPO (Gérer, Prévoir, Optimiser), which is an enterprise publication focused on management, HR, marketing, finance, etc. Snackable Content: Shorter content for smaller attention spans Online Marketing (Germany) Infographic What Your Desk Says About You Grazia (France) Additional infographic pick-up in a well-known French fashion magazine, as well as rhperformances.fr.Rhperformances.fr is a French consulting and recruitment agency specialized in HR. CUSTOMERS & PARTNERS IN THE NEWS Marketing, Change and Higher Ed Inside Higher Ed The head of content strategy from Marketo partner Fathom calls out our recent Mashable “Ask the CMO” series in his byline in this top education trade. As he points out, the industry trends that the CMO of Georgetown Business School highlighted in her interview all have to do with personalization. Do People Actually Watch Marketing Videos? Canadian Startup Vidyard Can Tell Fortune On Tuesday, Vidyard disclosed another $35 million in venture funding led by Battery Ventures to drive adoption. So far, the six-year-old Kitchener, Ontario, company has signed close to 1,000 businesses as customers—including companies like Citibank, LinkedIn, and TD Ameritrade—said co-founder and CEO Michael Litt. The New Reach Of Beacons: Broadway, Rite-Aid, Sales Terminals MediaPost This piece talks about our beacon partner Gimbal and upcoming beacon partner Footmarks. Theaters are being outfitted with Gimbal beacons and other location-based technology with Urban Airship’s mobile engagement platform. Audiences can receive messages when they are in the theater, before the show, during intermission and after the show ends. How to Get the Most Out of Summit 2016 MudTime Marketing Joe Reitz, Marketo Champion, wrote this great blog for newbies wondering how to get the most out of Summit. Survey Finds Extremely Poor Sales Lead Follow Up Across Nine Industries Press Release Conversica compared best-practice research with real-world execution and found that in many cases even direct website inquiries-presumably the hottest of prospects-were being ignored. The good news is that several companies showed outstanding lead follow-up practices and earned the top A grade, including Salesforce,Marketo, Zend Technologies, Anderson Subaru of Pensacola, Florida and Waldorf College in Forest City, Iowa. Microsoft adds new capabilities on Office 365 to tap enterprises Financial Express Microsoft is rolling out new technology that applies machine learning to the way people work to empower individual to work more effectively. The new Microsoft Office 365 comes with, Skype for Business that enables communication-powered productivity. With Power BI content packs for popular services such as Salesforce, QuickBooks Online, Marketo employees can begin visualizing the data in just minutes. 5 Ways B2B Sales and Marketing will evolve in 2016 MarTech Advisor Sean Zinsmeister, Senior Director of Product Marketing at partner Infer, points out the key changes he expects – from ABM becoming ubiquitous to predictive getting smarter and some others. Talking DoubleDutch about event marketing Diginomica Lawrence Coburn, CEO DoubleDutch says that to date, DoubleDutch is recording 68% adoption which means that a person signs up and does something with the app. Coburn thinks there’s much more that can be done that in turn will drive further adoption but, more important, value back to event attendees and organizers. INDUSTRY NEWS Collaboration to be Key As CMOs Start to Outspend CIOs MarTech Advisor According to a report, digital marketing budgets are set to increase by eight percent during 2015. This shows that marketing has a growing influence on technology spending, with Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) slated to outspend Chief Information Officers (CIOs) by 2017. Marcoms and ad tech merger activity: 2015 round-up MediaIntel Last year's ad tech mergers and acquisitions trends suggest that the market is unlikely to slow down in 2016. New Report: Marketing Automation Held Back By Budget, Data Management, And Lack of Time Marketing Land Based on survey responses from 400 U.S.-based marketing and sales professionals, the report from India-based IT/data management shop Openprise indicates that ease-of-use and quality of tools aren't the biggest obstacles. Profitability in a time of diaspora Channelnomics Forrester discusses the challenges partners face when it comes to the ease of doing business with vendors. The Fourth Industrial Revolution Might Cost You Your Job MediaPost This very anti-automation piece blames this “fourth industrial revolution” for killing job growth in Art, Design, Sports and Media. IAB Launches Data Center of Excellence to Ensure ‘Big Data’ Meets Its Promise for Marketers and Commitments to Consumers Press Release The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced the launch of the IAB Data Center of Excellence, a new independently funded unit within IAB, founded to expand existing IAB resources and drive the “data agenda” for the digital media, marketing, and advertising industry. The Data Center’s mission will be to help advertisers and marketers operationalize their data assets while maintaining quality, transparency, accountability, and consumer protection. Why the ad industry will never win the war on ad blockers CIO The head of the Interactive Advertising Bureau came out swinging against ad blockers last week. Instead of even attempting to fairly distribute blame for the chaotic state of the ad industry, the executive pointed his finger everywhere else but at IAB members. Internet advertising industry chief: Adblock Plus is an 'unethical, immoral, mendacious coven of techie wannabes' Business Insider President and CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Randall Rothenberg used the opening keynote speech at the IAB summit to accuse Adblock Plus of being an "unethical, immoral, mendacious coven of techie wannabes" and an "old-fashioned extortion racket."

By: Gareth Goh Posted: March 29, 2016 | Modern Marketing Marketers have a well-deserved reputation of being creative types, thinking outside the box and experimenting with new ideas that build brands, reach audiences, and engage customers. However, there is a critical component to marketing –and it’s one that can feel unintuitive to marketers—Data. And I don’t mean just random numbers and records, but accurate, high-quality, and actionable data that informs marketers how they should execute their growth plans. Marketing responsibilities are becoming increasingly technical in nature, and the task of collecting, analyzing, and making sense of all that data is moving away from the realm of a dedicated operations manager to the entire marketing team. The typical modern-day marketer works with a full stack of different technology platforms on a daily basis. At the very least, they are working with a marketing automation system and a customer database/CRM as the most basic must-haves. But the average digital marketer likely has several other systems at their disposal, from content management platforms and business intelligence to social media and lead nurturing tools. Needless to say, each of these individual platforms contains reams of valuable marketing data, but none of this data is very helpful if it exists in a silo. The best marketers rely on pieces of this data (from the various platforms) to successfully pull together and execute their marketing campaigns. But how can you pull together disparate data? This is where “marketing middleware,” one of the fastest-growing aspects of marketing operations, comes in. Middleware serves as the glue that connects all these different applications, greasing the wheels so they can work together to enable the back-and-forth sharing of data and, subsequently, strategy, insights, and execution. While marketing middleware has gotten a bad rap over the years, due to its (earned) reputation as being an archaic and complex system to set up and use, there are simply too many benefits that come from having your marketing data fully integrated to be daunted by the admittedly technical aspects of a marketing platforms integration. With middleware, you can drive more effective campaigns using sales team data, more efficiently distribute leads to your sales team, and create a hierarchy of systems to serve as a “single source of truth”, and more. There are certainly some back-end technical nuances and wiring for marketers to wrap their heads around, but don’t be deterred! There’s a great deal of legwork that marketers can undertake by laying the foundation for a successfuldata integration before looping in IT or an outsourced data integrations specialist. Follow these three steps to integrate your data and achieve a marketing operations peace of mind: 1. Figure Out Which of Your Platforms Should Be Integrated, and Why This is a natural place to start your data integration–figuring out what data you want to integrate in the first place. A common place to begin is between your marketing automation system and your customer database/CRM, to further align your sales and marketing data and processes. But consider whether it also make sense to integrate your customer support client with your marketing automation as well. How about your finance and e-commerce platforms too? It ultimately boils down to asking yourself one simple question: How will it benefit you, as a marketer, if this data and these platforms were synched and consistent? Does the answer to that question help you achieve your marketing or organization’s goals? To look at it from another point of view, ask yourself if the inconsistent data currently living across your multiple platforms is preventing you from working effectively. 2. Sort Out Your Field Mappings Field mappings are probably the most critical part of any data integration project. Different platforms collect data and information through different fields, some of which might not translate across disparate systems. For instance, your marketing automation might ask for “Name” while your CRM might ask for “First Name” and “Last Name” as two distinct fields. When synching this data, you need to make sure those fields with different names, but containing the same information, are mapped to each other. Go through your key fields to look for any inconsistencies (such as in the above example) and note them down for each platform. Additionally, determine a hierarchy of your systems to figure out which system should “own” certain fields in the case of an inconsistency. When data is overwritten, it should be done so to your specifications. Let’s say a customer named Robert Owen is entered into your CRM as “Bob,” but entered your marketing automation platform as “Robert,” and you have determined that your marketing automation is at the top of your hierarchy. In this case, all Bob Owen’s in this context would be overwritten as Robert Owen. 3. Understand and Plan for Risks One huge obstacle holding marketers back from diving whole-hog into a data integration project is the crippling fear that their data may get screwed up if they “mess with it.” This can be even more daunting if you decide that you want all your existing data to be synced, rather than having your data synced on a “go forward” basis, with just new data. This is a totally valid and justifiable concern, but there are ways to ensure that your data remains safe and sound. Whether you’re attempting such a technically challenging project on your own or reaching out to data integration specialists, make sure that you have a master record created before, during, and long after the initial sync. Most data integration platforms should create such a master record for you as a fail-safe anyways, but be sure to clarify this. Typically, your marketing automation system, customer database/CRM, or ERP should be your “System of Record”–the parent database to which all data questions should ultimately be referred to. This should be your single source of truth. Your various other platforms–be it sales, marketing, support, finance, etc.–will be your child records. Integrating your platforms and the valuable data contained within them is a daunting, but essential element of successful marketing operations. So lay the foundation by determining why your platforms should be integrated, how significant the volume of existing data to be integrated is, which fields should be mapped over and how, what the ensuing workflow will look like, and what the hierarchical structure will be following integration–and you’ll be well on your way to achieving a marketing operations peace of mind. Have any data integration nightmares? I’d love to hear about your experiences and how you overcame them in the comments below!

By: Mike Tomita Posted: February 19, 2016 | Digital Marketing Return on investment (ROI) is an important part of digital marketing (and  really, almost every part of marketing)—it tells you whether you’re getting your money’s worth from your marketing campaigns. And if you’re not, it’s critical to get to the bottom of it, and understand why so you can learn how to improve your campaigns. But first, you need to understand how you can effectively measure the ROI of digital advertising. The most instinctive way to measure digital advertising ROI is to track metrics that tie directly to revenue and profit (think conversions, opportunities, etc.). While it sounds great on paper, in the real world, this oversimplified view can paint an inaccurate picture of your ROI, especially if your product is sold at a low price per unit. Big picture measurement often factors in soft metrics—things like brand impressions, impressions, website visitors, and downloads—which help tell a more complete story. Here’s how to measure ROI using soft metrics for three popular digital advertisements—mobile video ads, native advertising, and programmatic advertising: 1. Mobile Video Ads Mobile video advertising can be more effective than regular web video advertising or even television advertising. This is because mobile is a much more intimate medium—it’s less of a shared experience and has fewer distractions. When done well, mobile video ads provide helpful information that drives traffic to your website, increases brand awareness, and is valuable enough for social sharing. Home improvement retailer Lowe’s recently demonstrated the value of mobile video ads with their #lowesfixinsix campaign on the popular video app Vine. The quick tips are fun and informative—and over 35,000 of their followers choose to have their ads in their feeds. Measuring the ROI of Mobile Video Advertising When evaluating the success of your mobile video advertising, take these metrics into account: Brand awareness: Measure brand awareness by looking at your direct traffic numbers (hits that come from viewers typing the URL directly into their search bar), the number of people who searched for your video by its name or hashtag, the number of clicks that came from referrals, and the number of social media shares and mentions. You can also find current search data on your brand name by using a tool like Google Trends. Purchase influence: Did your ad lead to an increase in sales? Look at the first-touch and multi-touch attribution that was generated by your video or video program for a look at the ROI but for a larger picture, look at the amount of traffic generated by your campaign and compare it to your sales numbers—including the numbers before and after the campaign launched. Accessibility: Track the placement of your ads and test them to make sure they are viewable on all devices and that they are not hidden on the page. This ensures people actually have access to your ads. Mind share: While you have no way of measuring how often people discuss your brand with friends over coffee, you can get a good idea how often people are talking about it by looking at the comments and shares on your mobile videos. A successful mobile video ad will have both. 2. Native Advertising Effective native advertising fits seamlessly into the organic content of the sites that carry them. Also known as an “advertorial,” this type of advertisement provides useful information to readers in a format that resembles non-paid articles on the website. Native advertising can be found in hard copies and online newspapers and magazines, but it’s also seen on social media sites such as Facebook.IBM pays to publish their own content on the Forbes platform as IBMVoice. Their paid content looks and feels like an article on the site, but it’s clear that it’s marketing content. In fact, native ads that look too much like unbranded content can actually hurt your campaign and reputation if you leave readers feeling duped. Measuring the ROI of Native AdvertisingMeasuring the ROI of native advertising can be challenge for many marketers. It’s measured primarily by click-throughs, which is an important factor to consider, but other measurements are also critical in understanding the full picture of its performance: Customer acquisition: How many click-throughs via native advertising led to acquiring information that you can nurture toward conversion? To measure this, divide the total number of click-throughs by the number of people who submitted contact information (for example, by signing up for your newsletter). This number should be higher in connection with a native advertising campaign. Reputation: Does the information presented in your native ad help develop the company as a trusted expert or thought leader? Does it increase the number of people turning to the brand’s website for advice? Look at the number of comments and queries you receive in connection to your ad, as well as increased traffic. Brand recognition: Do more people recognize your brand as a result of the native advertising? To determine this, look at your website analytics to find the number of hits that come in from your native advertising directly, and then use Google Trends to see if the number of people searching for your brand name is increasing. Mind share: Are people sharing your content on social media? Are they talking about it? You can usually find the number of social media shares right on the content page. 3. Programmatic Advertising Programmatic advertising is software-created, specifically-targeted advertising. You probably see this type of advertising many times a day online—they’re often displayed as banner or sidebar ads that change whenever you refresh your page.  A huge amount of marketing dollars go into programmatic advertising. In fact, eMarketer reports that it expects to see programmatic ad spend reach $20.41 billion this year. This type of advertising is automated—created directly, without an ad salesperson or contracts, and is based on your goals. The biggest advantage of programmatic advertising is that it can be altered to best meet your company’s needs, based on the demographics, location, and behavior of your target audience.Diesel, a popular fashion brand, included programmatic ads as part of their multi-channel campaign last fall. Their Shazam ads, for example, included copy specifically designed for the targeted setting. When Shazam couldn’t recognize a song, the Diesel ad empathized with the user. Measuring the ROI of Programmatic AdvertisingBecause of its versatility and flexibility, programmatic advertising metrics must be measured frequently to be effective. While things like click-throughs and mind share are important your measurements should focus on areas such as: Recognition and reputation: Search for your brand name on social media and keep track of the number of mentions, as well as whether the mentions are positive or negative. Your recognition should increase the longer your programmatic ads run. Website traffic numbers: As your brand becomes more recognized, you should see an increase in traffic, from people who come directly to your site by typing in your URL as well as following your ad. Hard metrics are without a doubt important for proving and improving ROI (and demonstrating the value of your activities and spend to the C-level), but it’s critical to track vanity metrics in addition to ROI in order to have a comprehensive view of how your ads are doing. As your brand pushes marketing boundaries into new strategies—like mobile video ads, native advertising, and programmatic ads—make sure you are measuring ROI beyond just revenue impact so your whole team can continue to drive engagement and improve sales.

this is an example doc used in [this post] that shows how to create successful nurture programs LNA: Install Snippet Email (EXAMPLE) Overview An email educating and encouraging new leads to install the snippet in the Optimizely product. Hypothesis By sending an email with a humorous subject line about installing the snippet, users will be more likely to open the email than if they are sent a serious subject line. Baseline Conversion Out of all leads that were delivered our "Snippet Install Email" (5,000), 35% of them opened the email (1750). Goal Increase create account conversion by 7% Baseline conversion = 4,900 leads per variation Audience New leads that created a self-serve Optimizely account Content Cadence: 1x week to new leads Notes

By: Chris Savage Posted: March 10, 2016 | Modern Marketing When we started Wistia in 2006, all of our marketing was centered around our video hosting product. We thought we were doing all the right things—demos over the phone, a PR firm, a “business-like” team page—so we didn’t understand why we had no money and only 5 employees. Then one day our filmmaker friend Chris Lavigne came by the office. He looked around, and then he proposed an idea so obvious and perfect I can’t believe I was ever skeptical of it: since Wistia is a video hosting company, why not use video in your actual marketing? I was a filmmaker myself before Wistia, but when Chris said this I was just confused. We already had a screencast of our product on our homepage. I didn’t understand what making more videos was supposed to add. We were marketing to other businesses, not putting together a reel, but Chris was our friend and he offered to make the video himself. So we agreed to let him do his thing. The video he made was pretty unconventional, at least for the time, because it wasn’t about our product at all: it was about the Wistia team goofing around on an ordinary day in the office, working hard but having fun doing it. And to our surprise, people loved it. The video was a huge success, which taught us an unexpected lesson—that people would respond to what we made if it demonstrated the fact that we actually care, heart and soul, about what video can do. This was one of the single most important shifts in mindset that had to happen in order for us to succeed. Hundreds of videos later, we’re profitable, with a much bigger team and customer base. And we owe it all to shutting up about our product and focusing on our mission of empowering everybody to get more out of video—what we now call mission-based marketing. But it didn’t happen overnight. Here’s how we aligned our marketing to a mission, and how you can do the same thing with your team: 1. Write Down How You Want to Change the World We burned through a lot of different missions before one of them stuck. Now, our mission is the compass we use to direct every single piece of content we produce. Everything supports that mission. Our early iterations were way too focused on our product and company goals because we thought a mission was about summing up how you worked and what you wanted. What we finally did was write down the things we valued the most about working at Wistia. We shared these with our team, got feedback, and together crafted a final draft. And it’s only by bringing all these people together that you really can get what you need: a mission that’s bigger than you and your company. So start marketing with a purpose: Write down the things that you value most about your work Share the values with your team and solicit feedback so they represent everyone Use this pool of shared values to work toward a cohesive mission statement. 2. Ask Your Customers What They Want to Achieve Imagine what your company looks like from your customer’s perspective. Essentially, you are a tool that they’re using to succeed at some bigger project, be it in business or life. Your tool is maybe just a small percentage—say 3%—of that project. The other 97% is what your marketing should be all about.To figure out what that 97% is, email and call your customers. Set up a forum or subreddit and ask questions there. Send out surveys. If you reach out for ideas often, you’ll gradually build a customer-company culture where the lines of communication are more open, and you’ll see more ideas emerge organically.Here are a few ways you can learn what your customers want to accomplish: Use a Google Forms survey to collect mass responses. It’s a very basic tool, and free, but it works really well to distribute surveys and collect responses. Set up a community if you don’t have one. You can use something as simple as a subreddit. You just need a place where you can talk informally with your users about the kinds of content they want. Go back to basics and call your customers. Ask them directly what they want to accomplish, and you’ll find that people can be a lot more candid and talkative over the phone. 3. Adjust Your Team’s Risk-Taking Threshold Mission-based marketing requires creativity, and creative ideas are fragile. Both extroverted and introverted people can get very shy when they have an idea for something that’s out of the box because they’re afraid of saying the wrong thing or being judged.We start ideation meetings by writing “Don’t hold back” on a whiteboard, especially when people clearly have ideas but are hesitant to express them. Then, we’ll just throw out the craziest idea we can think of that still fulfills our mission, something just really outlandish. After the baseline is adjusted, everyone in the room feels a little freer to speak their mind. Case in point: this is how the announcement of ourEnterprise plan turned into a full-fledged parade.Create an open culture around creativity using the same method we did: Divide meetings into ideation, decision-making, and execution so you can think of the craziest possible ideas without having to imagine how to do them. Start ideation meetings by throwing off the baseline, then let the conversation guide you toward a solution that’s both creative and doable. Write down without judgment every idea that your team generates. You can figure out which ones make sense later. 4. Make Your Content-Creation Process Transparent and Accessible We work really hard to encourage a total content culture at Wistia. Everyone who works here is part of the mission, so everyone should be part of our mission-based marketing.To open content creation up to everyone, we documented our process. Instead of just blazing through everything like we usually did, we slowed down. We got dry-erase markers, drew it out on a wall, and asked questions about each step to figure out how and why it was in there. When we had it down pat, we put it in a Google Doc and opened it up to the team. Then, we set up a Trello board just for content ideas and invited everyone to participate. If you do this, you’re going to find that your idea board fills up incredibly fast. There’s only so much you can say about your product, but when you start to orient your content around your mission, the possibilities become endless.Try out this method out with your team: Map out your process in dry-erase so you can edit on the fly and display it in a central location. Transcribe the complete process into a Google Doc so your whole team can see and use it. Set up Trello boards to document the stages each project is in (ideation, drafting, revision, submitted, etc). Live And Breathe Your Mission Great marketing demonstrates how passionate you are about the mission you’re trying to help your customers achieve. It doesn’t matter if your company is in a “boring” field (I mean, we do video hosting for businesses!)—showing heart still matters. There’s a lot of companies out there that don’t think about this stuff at all, but this is really how you differentiate yourself from the pack. Get your team together and write your mission down, then talk to your customers about it. Democratize and make transparent your team’s content-creation process, then unleash its creativity by encouraging crazy ideas. What other steps have you taken to align your marketing around your company’s mission? Share them in the comments below.

By Sanjay Dholakia I’m often asked which industries are experiencing the most growth within their marketing departments, or even which sectors are most open to adopting marketing technology. Surprisingly, in the last few years, the world of sports and entertainment marketing has emerged as an industry of rapid adoption, with franchises looking for new and inventive ways to connect with their fans. This is an important shift: Promoting sports has long been a quintessential traditional marketing exercise, with glossy magazine spreads and television advertisements winning the day. It’s such an emotive world. While fan enthusiasm might wax and wane with a team’s win-loss record, the understanding is that well-established teams like the Detroit Pistons orPortland Trail Blazers — both Marketo customers — will always have support. You could forgive them for just doing the same marketing things they have always done. But instead, what we’ve seen is that franchises across nearly every sport — NBA, MLB, NHL, NFL, even cricket and rugby teams abroad — are flocking to tools that will help them deepen their interactions with fans. We’re seeing them embrace a greater marketing shift and rotate toward digital engagement in nearly every way possible. They are doing this in an effort to drive fan loyalty, ticket sales and repeat engagement in an increasingly noisy world for consumers. My point is, if the sports world is rotating so dramatically toward digital, what greater imperative is there for marketers in other industries to rethink their marketing approach and embrace the new, more effective way of engaging with prospects, customers, and even employees? For the next few days, I’ll find myself in Austin, Texas, for SXSW Interactive, where I’ll besitting down with executives from the Pistons, Trail Blazers and sports and analytics agencyE15 to discuss the latest ways the sports world is leading the pack in terms of innovation. Of course, we’ll also detail what other industries can take away from this. If you won’t be joining me in the great state of Texas, here is a preview of some high-level insights that can be valuable for every marketer. There are fans, and then there are FANATICS We live in an age where consumers have transformed how they interact with brands and, therefore, how brands must interact with consumers. Marketing is no longer a one-way stream of messages; it’s a two-way conversation in which what the customer has to say carries even more credibility than the brand itself. Your brand is what the customers — or fans — say it is. With this huge emphasis on trust and the value of referrals, marketers must drive engagement and advocacy — something that is de rigueur in sports marketing today. The sports world should be considered the ideal model for brand loyalty. All sports teams have fans, and fans will always attend games and support their teams, right? Wrong. Even sports have had to respond and innovate in order to capture fan attention. There are just too many ways to spend time in today’s world, not to mention the fact that technology and television have made the stay-at-home-watching experience more enjoyable than ever before. For franchises, the challenge is how to convert casual fans who might attend one game into people who are repeat ticket buyers and who invest even more in other ways, be it through merchandise sales or attending additional events at a venue. Imagine if you could take this expanded approach and apply it to your industry! Sports marketing is multi-faceted Sports marketers teach us that there is much more to a brand-customer relationship than a single point of purchase; it’s about a greater customer relationship with multiple touch points across multiple channels. With all of these variables, it’s important to be able to engage with people in all the ways and places that they would like to interact with your brand. This maximizes the value of the relationship both for your business and the customer. For franchises, this involves curating a fan’s first interaction with a team — be that buying a piece of merchandise in-store or online or attending a game — and then understanding how this relationship can be maintained and developed over time. There’s a huge listening component there: If Bob consistently buys tickets every time the team plays a specific competitor, the franchise should know to market accordingly and include complementary offerings. This could be better seats, specific gear, in-stadium food deals or suggestions of other ticket packages that Bob also might find interesting. This connection to both in- and out-of-stadium is huge. This treats a fan as a whole person — not a series of different entities interacting with a brand in isolated channels. If Sharon buys an ice cream cone in the last half of every game, why not send her an offer for a two-for-one deal next time she’s at the stadium? In fact, you can then suggest some other events for her to attend where she can make use of this coupon. The possibilities are truly endless. The sports approach works When brands adjust their approach to marketing and adopt the right tools — marketing automation being one such tool — the benefits and results are palpable. In the case of the Detroit Pistons parent brand, Palace Sports and Entertainment, the organization saw a 90-percent renewal in membership rates — the best in their history — and a 30-percent increase in season ticket sales. And in the case of the Trail Blazers, the team was able to increase season ticket renewals by eight percent (a 96-percent renewal rate), up single-game ticket sales by 30 percent and improve email open rates by 45 percent. Wow. If this isn’t enough motivation, I don’t know what is. Take a page out of the sports playbook, and see your customers converted to brand FANATICS.

This in-depth guide walks through the steps needed to set up a repeatable and measurable direct mail program in Marketo.

By: Jignesh Shahfrom Grazitti Posted: March 14, 2016 | Lifecycle Marketing Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most powerful channels for bringing new customers to your business. In fact, according to Edelman Trust Barometer, 84% of B2B businesses initiate the buying process with a referral. And data from Marketo Institute shows that the referral is the best acquisition channel for conversion rates at almost 4x the average. So, it should come as no surprise that many B2B marketers are following in the footsteps of companies like Uber who have successfully grown their businesses using referral programs. While companies from any industry can harness the power of word-of-mouth marketing, these types of programs pose unique challenges for B2B businesses. Due to the complex sales processes and expensive nature of some B2B products, you need to put time and careful consideration into developing your referral program’s strategy, structure and internal processes. Below are seven questions that you should ask yourself, your marketing team, and key players on your sales team as you develop a B2B referral program in order to anticipate issues and avoid pitfalls: 1. Is your product referral worthy? Customers will only refer your product if they have had an extremely positive experience with both your product and your company. Referral marketing is best suited for products with strong customer benefits and successful support. Before you consider developing a formal referral program, you need to assess the customer satisfaction levels for your product. Are your customers enthusiastic about your product enough to recommend it to others? To determine this, you may want to conduct a Net Promoter Score (NPS) study. NPS measures your customers’ willingness to recommend your product to other buyers. If a NPS study is not feasible, assess your customer retention and subscription renewal rates. 2. Which customers should you target? The most effective way to get your referral program off the ground is by targeting your best customers. Here are there things to look for when identifying these key participants: Payment: Start with targeting customers who are willing to pay for the product typically believe in its value. Avoid targeting customers that have just started on free or trial plans as they may not have experienced the full product benefits. For these customers, you need to first focus on making them successful before asking for referrals from them. Activity: Target customers who actively use your product as they can best communicate its value to others. Achieved ROI: Customers who have used your product to achieve measurable results can illustrate the product’s value better than those who have just started using it. 3. How will you promote the program? Now that you have defined your referral program’s target audience, you need to decide how you will ask them to join. For the most part, it’s better to start with a small, targeted push by sending invitations to those who are most likely to become referrers. You can do this through a targeted email campaign or by asking sales to send personal invitations.Once your program starts to take off, you can then begin to promote referrals more extensively through your website, blogs, newsletters, social media, and direct mail. You can also extend the referral program to your partners if you have an active channel program. 4. How will you qualify referred leads? Qualifying referred leads is a more complicated process for B2B companies. You need to confirm that your sales team hasn’t already identified the referral as a prospect. Depending on your sales process, this can be automated partially or completely using a marketing automation system and CRM.You also need to verify that the referred business has the budget, authority, and timeline to make a purchase. You can ask for this information upfront as part of lead capture process or your sales team may prefer to ascertain this information by speaking directly to the referred lead. This is where sales and marketing alignment is vital to define and agree upon how you will qualify and accept referred leads. 5. How will you hand-off referred leads to sales? One of the biggest pitfalls businesses encounter with B2B referral programs is that qualified, purchase-ready referred leads may get lost in the process. Not only is this a lost sales opportunity, but it may discourage customers from making referrals in the future. If you want your program to be successful, it’s essential that you work with sales to establish a system for tagging referred leads and directing their information to the right person who will follow up promptly.You may want to create separate CRM views or marketing alerts to make sure that the sales team follows up on referred leads quickly. Consider creating a written service-level agreement (SLA) with sales to establish how and when sales representatives will follow up with leads. 6. How will you motivate customers to make referrals? Even if customers love your product, they’ll still need a little motivation to introduce your brand to others. This is especially true given the cost of most B2B products and services. As a result, many B2B referral programs use rewards to motivate and thank the referrers.Here are some factors to consider when choosing an incentive structure: Reward Type: What type of reward will resonate best with your customers? Product discounts, free training, conference passes, and gift cards with tangible value are a few options. Choose the appropriate reward type (or types, if you are going to let customers choose) based on your customer demographics. Reward Size: How big does the reward have to be to matter to your customers? In general, senior-level buyers require larger reward sizes. What will your budget permit? Mile-Post: Will you provide rewards only when the lead makes a purchase? Given a typical B2B sales cycle, this can sometimes take weeks or months, so consider whether it make sense to provide a smaller reward as soon as the lead is qualified. Single or Double-Sided: Will you reward only the referrer? Or is there something you offer the lead as well so that they too benefit from coming in as a referral? 7. How will you automate your referral program? With all of the moving parts involved in a B2B referral program, it will save you time, money, and resources if you find ways to automate some of the tracking and administrating aspects of your program.Consider the following questions in order to help define how your marketing automation platform and CRM can support your referral program: How will you capture referred leads and referrers? Can you automatically qualify leads before handing them off to sales? How will you know when a purchase has been completed so that you can thank the referrer? Can you automate reward delivery? Make Your Referral Program a Pillar of Business Growth Word-of-mouth marketing is a worthy investment for any company with useful products and a significant customer base. Even though B2B referral programs can pose unique challenges, your business can build a successful program by identifying and anticipating these challenges from the start. Work with your sales team to identify your best customers and develop a referral lead-to-revenue process. Then, map out the incentive structure, the promotion strategy, and any automation needs. Now that you know what questions to ask yourself when developing the program, you can be on your way to making your referral program a marketing pillar of growth. If you have run a referral program before, do you have any considerations or tips to add? Please share them in the comments section below. This blog was co-authored by Rachit Puri at Grazitti.

By: Phillip Chen Posted: March 17, 2016 | Modern Marketing For marketers at growing companies who are ready to make the leap from a small marketing group to a larger-scale function, making their programs larger and more effective is almost always on their minds. But how do you grow with your programs so that you don’t get left in the dust? I started at Marketo when our marketing team was relatively small, and since then we have more than doubled. Throughout this time I have observed two types of marketers—the ones that have been able to grow with the company and the ones that weren’t able to punch above their original weight class. So how do you make sure that you’re growing with your company? Here are four ways to take yourself, and your marketing, to the next level: 1. Start Digging for Insights If you have no idea where to begin, start by looking at which of your programs are performing well and which could use some improvement. Indicators of program performance can include things like subjective opinion, pipeline attribution, or even something as basic as abnormal response rates. When you dig into this, you’ll find is that your original question will cascade into a series of additional questions such as “Is this an anomaly?” or “How can this be replicated?”. Ultimately, it’s the insights that stem from your curiosity that will lead you to a new idea to boost your programs. At Marketo, to gain insight into how we could grow our virtual event from 9,000 attendees to over 20,000 attendees, we put together a focus group of people with varying degrees of knowledge about what a virtual event was. Then, we asked them a series of questions, drilling into their answers looking for more insights. What we found were new ways of promoting the event, messaging around it, and other things our current event lacked. For example, we found that virtual attendees appreciate subtitles as not everyone can rely solely on audio. Another insight we found was that there was a misconception that a virtual event was a webinar, and that people didn’t realize it was very interactive and that they could interact with sponsors, network, listen to different sessions, download content, and also win prizes. Aside from focus groups, other ways you can uncover insights for your company include surveys, internal interviews, customer interviews, and of course reports. 2. Coordinate with Other Teams The difference between a small program and a larger program often comes down to cross-functional coordination. If you are effectively able to leverage other teams, you’ll have a greater impact with what you can do. The reason our field events at Marketo have grown so vigorously is because we have a buy-in process with sales and a coordinated effort of different roles and responsibilities to penetrate any given region. We start by showing our sales reps all the options available to them in terms of campaigns, events, and reports. Then, we have them request these options through a form or meeting. Doing this enables us to understand what our reps needs, which we can then translate into a plan. Our plans are reviewed by sales, so they can provide their feedback on whether or not it supports their objectives. As you can see, our program would be stifled if only handled by one group and not as a collaborative effort. Cross-functional coordination doesn’t apply to just sales and marketing alignment for B2B marketers, but extends to other departments as well as applies across marketing. Consider working closely with customer success, support, and other teams in your organization. 3. Plan Your Program Backwards Dream big, and then figure out what it takes to get there. This might seem intuitive, but in reality this is probably done poorly most of the time because of the considerable amount of effort it takes. Say for example that you want 1,000 people to register for your event. What do you have to do to get there? It will take a lot of brainstorming, and although you may not reach your goal initially, over time you will learn more effective ways to achieve the big dreams that you have. Remember that this is an iterative process. The first time you do this, your guesstimates or forecasts will probably be off. For example, you may think that sending one email can drive 100 people to a webinar, but it only really drove 10. While your assumption was off, the next time you go through this process, you will be able to better understand your investments and how to reach the numbers you are trying to achieve. 4. Obtain the Appropriate Resources I hate to tell you, but the honest truth is, if you want something to grow and scale, it will require resources in the form of time and money. What I will say though is that when there’s a will there’s a way. If you’ve done a good job of planning, you’ll be sharp and ready to handle any objections when talking to stakeholders—proving to them that what you want will help them achieve their goals. It’s unbelievable the number of times I’ve gotten my program invested internally over others, purely because I’ve put together a well-thought out plan of how the investment will be used and why it’s the right allocation of budget. At the end of the day, obtaining the appropriate resources is about creating a convincing argument as to why your program deserves more investment than another. To help you create a convincing argument, measure as many aspects of your program as possible to see where there may be outlier results that you can leverage to get your project funded. Things to measure may include pipeline, new logos, customer acquisition cost, new names, attendance rate, or number of marketing qualified leads to name a few. Growing with your marketing can be painful. It requires adaptability, a big dream, but also the willingness to learn and sweat to create something larger than yourself. Ask questions and get curious, bring in other teams to do something larger than just one function, plan a way to get what you want, and ask for the appropriate resources to get there with the right metrics to back it up.

By: Brit Tammeorg Posted: March 18, 2016 | Mobile Marketing Businesses large or small can benefit immensely from mobile marketing. SMS marketing, otherwise known as text message marketing, is one of the most personal ways to communicate with your buyers. After all, what other marketing tool do you know of that allows retailers and business owners to have virtually immediate contact with their customers? More than 90% of text messages are read within 3 minutes, according to a study by MobileSquared. And while email inboxes can get clogged with spam and unwanted promotions, customers are very careful about opting in to text message updates, which means that your message will reach the right person who is actually interested in your offerings. But simply investing in an SMS marketing program isn’t all it takes to reap the rewards. SMS marketing, like any other campaign, requires time, attention, and the occasional tweaking for your business, budget, and customers.Whether you’re already running an SMS campaign or you’re looking to start one, here are four tips to get the most out of SMS marketing for your business: 1. Comply with the Laws Text message marketing is a privilege for businesses, not a right. Each country adheres to a specific set of laws, so if your business’ SMS campaign has a global reach, make sure you understand the laws in each country. In the U.S., aside from the basic law that you must have the consent (opt-in) of your recipients to send them promotional texts, there are a few other laws that you should be aware of: Opting in can’t be a condition of purchasing. In other words, you can’t force anyone to consent to receiving SMS messages from you by barring them from buying unless they agree to opt-in. You need to include a “Help” function if you anticipate that your recipients may need additional information about your message. That way, they can ask technical questions about texting and get useful answers. You need to include an opt-out or “STOP” function that’s clear and easy for your recipients to do, and that works. Don’t tell them they can opt out by sending “STOP” to 9876 and then keep sending them messages after they’ve followed your instructions to opt-out. Don’t end up like Jiffy Lube with a $47M lawsuit settlement for sending unsolicited texts to customers or Papa John’s whopping $250M suit for the same reason. Not to mention Life Time Fitness’ recent settlement $15M for sending unsolicited marketing text messages.Bottom line: Make sure you’re compliant. Companies of all sizes get sued for the misuse of SMS marketing all the time. 2. Build Your Subscriber List So how do you encourage your prospects and customers to opt-in to receiving your SMS messages and comply with the law? There are several ways to build your SMS subscriber list by making the opt-in function more visible throughout your marketing channels.Take a look at some of the channels below to determine where you can add SMS opt-in information: Facebook: Add a “Mobile Number” field to any Facebook page sign-up and an “Opt-in” button for them to sign on to your SMS campaign. Make sure you validate the number before you add this person to your campaign. If they entered the wrong number, you could potentially be sending text messages to someone who didn’t authorize them. Website: Include SMS opt-in instructions on your website. Email: Make SMS opt-in visible on your newsletter. Direct Mail: All snail mail should have instructions for SMS opt-in printed on it. Mobile: Send an opt-in text, such as “Text YES to receive discounts and promotions from XYZ company.” Additionally, all of your customer-facing employees should be trained to ask for a customer’s permission for opt-in. This means that they need to be able to explain the benefits and details of your SMS campaign (coupons, discounts, appointment reminders, events, etc.). 3. Write Great Messages Text messages take a different form than emails and other channels of communication, so be mindful of how your message will be viewed. Your subscriber will see your message on a screen smaller than a computer, so keep your messages short and straightforward. But cutting down on the quantity of content doesn’t mean you need to sacrifice quality as well.Remember, your main objective is to give your subscribers information that they can understand quickly and easily. You can try to be clever or humorous as long as your customers are get it. The key is to follow the voice of your brand and be personal. Address your subscribers by their name and understand their behaviors (interactions with your brand, purchase history, downloads, etc.) and what stage they are in their unique customer journey. Then, use this information to send relevant text messages that hit the target. For example, if you’re a massage clinic sending a message to a new customer, text him with “Hi Kevin, thanks for coming in today. Enjoy %15 off your next sports massage with discount code: 15OFF” to keep him coming back.However you choose to shape your messaging, be sure to avoid these SMS sins: Don’t spam. Don’t send several texts a day to your subscribers. Depending on your business, an SMS campaign of 4-12 total messages per month should be sufficient. Don’t send off-target offers. Offer your subscribers something of value. If you constantly send them texts about products or services that aren’t relevant to them, you may lose them as an SMS subscriber or even as a customer. Don’t wake them up. Ideal texting time is between 9am and 8pm. Anything sent before or after that treads the line of being intrusive. 4. Measure Your Results Like your other marketing channels, you’ll need to understand how to measure your SMS marketing results to track the success of each campaign and learn how to optimize them.Track the following metrics and repeat periodically to continue to enhance your campaign: Calculate your churn rate. Take the number of your people who unsubscribed from your SMS campaign and divide it by the total number of customers who initially opted in. This will reveal how quickly your subscribers are leaving your campaign. Determine your redemption rate. Take the number of your subscribers who responded to call-of-action and divide it by number of total subscribers in your program. This indicates how successful your campaign was at generating responses. Calculate the cost. Take the cost of each SMS message and divide it by the redemption rate (calculated above). Based on how much you invested, did it perform well? SMS is quick and effective way to reach your audience wherever they are. By following the tips above, you can get your SMS marketing campaign off on the right foot. Understand the laws, build your subscriber list, craft great messages, and measure and analyze your results. Have you already started on your SMS marketing journey? I’d love to hear your tips and tricks in the comments section below! For more on SMS and mobile marketing, check out The Definitive Guide to Mobile Marketing.

By: Kristen Kaighn Posted: March 21, 2016 | Lifecycle Marketing I have a confession. I have placed 118 Amazon Prime orders in the last 6 months. Now, judging by the amount of cardboard in my garage alone, I should have known I might have a “problem.” Everything I’ve purchased were things that I could easily buy across the street, from protein shakes to batteries, cheddar bunnies to hangers, and, of course, all the things I’ll need for my new baby that’s coming in a few weeks. But my “problem” is really the product of Amazon’s secret sauce and why they’ve been able to retain me (an admittedly extremely fickle shopper) as a loyal customer. What goes into this “secret sauce” of customer retention? Is there a recipe for taking a business model and product from good, to one that customers can’t live without? As marketers, we know that we have to keep delivering value in the form of content, entertainment, education, and services well after the initial transaction in order to keep customers engaged and our brand top-of-mind. But customer retention goes past simply staying top-of-mind. It’s about understanding your customers deeply and ensuring that no matter where they are in their purchase cycle, you’ve got their back. This is what great companies have in common: a customer culture where everyone feels ownership of the customer experience—essentially living by the quote “customer service is not a department, it’s everyone’s job.” Today’s buyers are more likely to switch (brands, vendors, providers) than ever before, regardless of whether they’re a millennial or boomer. However, taking these steps towards building a customer culture in your company can make a big impact on your customer retention and grow your loyalty base: Step 1: Develop a Process Do you have a process for dealing with the positive and negative responses you receive from customers? Step one to building a customer-centric culture is to get your house in order because if it’s messy, everyone on the Twitterverse will hear about it. Okay, so maybe it’s not necessarily Twitter, but today’s customers are not shy about sharingboth their positive and negative experiences with a brand. Your plan will be unique to your business, your product or service, and your support structure, but it’s critical that everyone in your organization fundamentally understands your policy and process for handling customer feedback. As you develop your customer response plan, keep these things in mind: Take the time to listen to your audience. Address their issue with respect and timeliness, but appropriate humor also goes a long way (you are talking to a person after all). Don’t shy away from responding where they are, especially in the social arena. Step 2: Frame Every Interaction as an Opportunity Seize every interaction with your customers as an opportunity to make them happy. The top three reasons why customers switch brands are cheaper pricing, rude staff, and too many mistakes. This means that every touchpoint with your customer is important, especially when you consider the impact that retaining that customer can have on your business. The Pareto Principle states that 80% of revenue comes from 20% of your customers.With this in mind, here are three things to remember as you work to create excellent customer interactions: Offer promotions and discounts for your most loyal customers to keep happy customers, well, happy. Build your customer culture and teams with people who share the same values. Fanatical care for the customer can be built into your culture, so think about the different ways you can build it into yours. In some cases, this means that everyone spends time working customer support as part of their training, while in others, customers are the heart of every story the brand tells. Understanding your customers before they tell you something went wrong is critical. Having a centralized view of customers and coordinating their experiences allows you to avoid spamming them and lets you speak to them personally, with relevant messages. Step 3: Nail Your Customer Service As the face of your company, your customer-facing teams are the front line in sometimes tense situations. Their response can make or break you in the eyes of your customer.Arming your service team with the right tools to resolve issues can make a huge impact on your customer retention: Create a channel for service teams to relay customer feedback. Obviously, poor product design or experience will create some unhappy customers, but having a feedback loop from your customer teams to the appropriate contact internally will allow you to actively address and log these issues. Develop an arsenal of resolution tactics. A representative that can’t solve a problem can just make a bad situation worse, so make sure that your service teams have a robust arsenal of resolution tactics. Be prompt. No one likes hold music, so don’t torture your customers with lengthy wait times. Your customers are people and most people don’t love wasting their time on hold, so make their service experience as seamless as possible. Want to learn more about how to bottle your own secret customer retention sauce? Check out our slide deck,Customers Are Your Prospects, Too to discover how retention, loyalty, and advocacy drive revenue and should be every marketer’s biggest focus.

By: Linda Russheim  (Founder and Director of HT Financial Marketing and Monica Ralli (CMO of The Hay Group) In professional services, creating and sustaining long-term relationships with clients is ultimately a business’ most critical challenge. With multiple mediums and devices competing for your audience’s attention daily, the new era of marketing is all about an integrated conversation with a client. Organizations must truly understand their audience, which means allowing clients the opportunity to engage and interact with a company. In this way, their preferred behavior can surface and a deeper understanding is gained by both client (in relation to the offerings) and the business (in relation to client behavior). This integrated conversation provides the business with a line of sight from prospect to profit. This is valuable in itself, but becomes even more powerful as a way for marketing departments to demonstrate their impact beyond lead generation to sales, revenue growth and ROI. From an internal perspective, it is imperative that the marketing, sales, IT, and finance departments are fully aligned. Marketing automation is the catalyst for this, allowing for better understanding of prospect and client lifecycles. With this understanding, businesses can develop the appropriate ‘trigger’ for when action should be taken and by whom. Marketing can nurture customers through the sales funnel more efficiently and in a personalized manner, leading to increased lead generation – thus providing sales with Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs). In turn, sales can then focus their time on their best prospects to close deals, resulting in increased conversion and a significantly reduced cost of sales. From a financial point of view, this is an attractive proposition. Recently, one of our clients – a global professional services company that invested in marketing automation as part of their digital transformation – moved to an inbound marketing model. The company overall had to be persuaded that what was happening in marketing would have a deeper impact on its overall business. In order to prove this, the marketing department was going to be held to a number of key performance indicators (KPIs) to justify the investment in marketing technology and automation. In this model, targeted, compelling content was created and shared with clients and prospects to foster an ongoing conversation. This ongoing conversation provided an opportunity for clients to engage in multiple ways, leading to a greater exchange of client information that provided the company with a better understanding of who they were trying to reach. Content creation and distribution are critical differentiators in professional services and help lead to long-term client relationships. The company underwent both a mindset shift and operational shift in marketing in order to learn how to develop campaigns that would resonate with specific audiences. In this way, they were able to create integrated conversations – a focus and approach that previously was not in place. Over a period of time it became clear that lead generation could offer the company some clear benefits: A more relevant and focused conversation around specific campaigns that led to consistent brand recognition in high-growth audiences. A clear view of the client behavior through all stages of engagement and value to the company from prospect through to MQL, sale, revenue, and ultimately profitability. Reduced cost-of-sales by engaging the salesforce on MQLs that had a greater probability of converting to sales. This more valuable conversation with clients and subsequent measurable results also elevated the marketing discussion in the boardroom gaining support from both the finance and IT functions. Discussions were centered around the client in a way that allowed relevant behavior to correlate directly to numbers. This process wasn’t seamless. Data clean up shouldn’t be underestimated nor should be explaining the concept of a ‘digital heartbeat’ to those outside marketing! There were challenges around moving to a data-driven client base, focusing on conversations with clients who had and were engaging with the company. And surprisingly the change in mindset for marketing to align around a singular engagement strategy and not multiple activities required an extensive re-education process. Although the company is still on the journey to complete the full marketing automation integration, its first pilot campaigns are showing very promising results. Specifically, there are improvements around client engagement and positive internal alignment between the marketing department and sales and finance. For the first time, all are aligned around the same objective. Many professional services firms and financial companies, have yet to appreciate that prospects and clients need time to engage and seek an integrated dialogue with the company. If tracked, their journey from prospect to loyal repeat-business client can yield multiple opportunities for the company in providing an exceptional client experience as well as strengthening the company internally with a common focus across a single issue – clients.