Product Documents

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.

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.

MARKETO IN THE NEWS Marketo hires Adobe/Salesforce vet to lead business development Seeking Alpha Robin Ritenour, formerly Adobe's VP of partner strategy and alliances and Salesforce's VP of strategic alliances and go-to-market, has been named Marketo's (MKTO +0.9%) SVP of business development. Additional Pick-Up: MarTech Advisor ]ress release: Robin Ritenour Joins Marketo as Senior Vice President of Business Development Mass Marketing Doesn’t Work Anymore: Marketo CEO B&T (Australia) Phil is quoted in this piece on engagement marketing from his recent Australia trip. Biz Break: Adobe shines and Zuckerberg jogs in the smog Mercury News Smith will be on stage with Marketo CEO Phil Fernandez during the conference’s May 10 kickoff at the MGM Grand Las Vegas Hotel and Casino. We assume Smith knows at least something about what San Mateo-based Marketo does. At the very least, maybe the MGM is comping him a breakfast buffet and some blackjack chips? [if !supportLists]·       [endif]Press Release: Marketo Announces Additional Keynote Speaker for 2016 Marketing Nation® Summit Act-On vs. Hubspot vs. Marketo: 3 top marketing automation tools compared CIO This piece aggregated reviews from IT Central Station. Interestingly enough, the quotes pulled for Marketo are very brief and from an SMB user (1-100 employees). Notably, in the “Room for Improvement” section, this user calls out the need for easier creation/modification of graphic-driven templates. Template improvements are already included in our product roadmap. And no Eloqua. Improve Your Email Marketing With These 5 Tips from Marketo CMS Wire In an era of ad-blockers and spam filters, marketers need relevant, innovative email marketing strategies and tactics to keep subscribers informed and engaged with your brand. That was the key message Marketo's Mike Madden shared in a recent CMSWire webinar, 5 Tips to Master Email Marketing. Sixty Seconds With Greg Taylor (Attached) AdNews (Australia) Greg Taylor’s profile is in the latest issue of AdNews. Overcoming the Barriers to Automation (Attached) Marketing Week (UK) Marketing Week, the UK’s leading marketing publication, interviewed several well-known brands for this piece on ‘overcoming the barriers to marketing automation’ including one of Marketo’s customers, Nokia. Its head of marcomms and campaign packing, Bareld Meijering said that ‘working with Marketo, the brand takes note of customer interactions and research before any contact from the sales function so it can target buyers and key stakeholders in the decision making process at the most appropriate time.’ Marketo is the "keeper" of new leads (Translated) Marconomy (Germany) Marconomy, the most influential B2B-Marketing publication in Germany, picked up our Citrix release. The readers of Marconomy are company leaders, marketing and communication experts as well as scientists coming both from Marketing as well as Sales departments. Mobile Marketing LEAD Digital (Germany) Conor Shaw is quoted in the attached piece on mobile marketing. LEAD digital is an online (and print) magazine for digital professionals and online marketing professionals. It provides information on the digital industry and covers topics such as mobile, social media, SEM/SEO, online marketing and e-commerce. From "A" as automated to "P" as personalized: Six Benefits of Marketing Automation Swiss CRM A byline article from Conor Shaw was published in Swiss CRM, which is aimed at marketing executives as well as IT decision makers, dealing with all topics related to Marketing – especially Customer Relationship Management and Marketing Automation. Drum Roll, Please...Akamai, Cisco, Leidos, Lloyds Banking Group, Marketo, PwC, Spectrum Health, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Virgin Media Recognized as 2016 Jive Award Winners Press Release Jive customers were honored at JiveWorld16 for best-in-class deployments of Jive WorkHub solutions that drive competitive advantage and build sustainable cultures. Marketo won the category of “Transforming Customer Engagement for Marketing.” How a DMP can Transform Your Customer-Centric Marketing Customer Think Marketo estimates that up to 98% of all internet traffic is anonymous. Startup Usermind Comes Out Of Stealth With $14.5 Million And Ambitious Plan For 'BizOps' Software Forbes Marketo was mentioned in articles about BizOps startup Usermind. Usermind wants to do for business operations what Marketo did for marketing and Salesforce did for sales. [if !supportLists]·       [endif]VentureBeat: Stealth startup Usermind fetches $14.5 million to usher in the BizOps revolution CUSTOMERS & PARTNERS IN THE NEWS Google Creates Analytics 360, Introduces DMP For A Multiscreen World MediaPost Google's mission to increase the accuracy of the search and display advertisements served to consumers on desktop, mobile and other Internet-connected devices led the company to build out a suite of applications that puts it on par with those offered by Adobe, IBM, Oracle, Salesforce, and SAP. This is being described as competition for marketing clouds. Why Facebook prefers native over 'valueless' banner ads Marketing Dive Facebook said native and video ads offer more value, and has a plan to reduce waste. PR Newswire Named Finalist for Marketing Team of the Year, Enterprise in 2016 Marketo Revvie Awards Press Release PR Newswire is proud to announce that they have been named a finalist for Marketing Team of the Year, Enterprise in the 2016 Marketo Revvie Awards. The Marketo Revvie Awards celebrate those who have significantly impacted company revenue and built engaging, long-lasting relationships with customers by leveraging Marketo marketing automation software. Building Blocks: Brian Hansford, Director Client Services and Marketing Technology Practice at Heinz Marketing Talks Marketing Tech MarTech Advisor Marketo customer and partner speaks about Heinz Marketing’s marketing journey. Take these Quick Checks Before You Invest in New Marketing Technologies MarTech Advisor Digital marketing nerd Justin Dunham – Urban Airship – lists down key questions every marketing unit needs to ask before buying software in terms of ROI, resource allocation, and usefulness. Interview with Yaron Zakai-Or, Founder and CEO - SalesPredict MarTech Advisor Partner SalesPredict says that predictive analytics is no longer the domain of just data scientists and business analysts. Vibes Included as a Vendor in Three Mobile Categories Press Release A new report from Forrester Research, Inc. released today includes Vibes, one of our mobile marketing partners, as a vendor in three mobile marketing technology categories: Mobile Engagement Automation, Mobile Messaging and Messaging Aggregators. A new metric for CMOs: The Magic Growth Number VentureBeat The CEO of Captora posits that to gauge the efficiency of a company’s go-to-market model, CMOs are increasingly using a metric called the ‘Magic Number.’ New Cloudwords OneReview Capabilities Further Accelerate Go-To-Market Timelines for Marketing to Global Audiences Press Release Partner Cloudwords new capabilities deliver translation workflow enhancements for improved speed and quality of multilingual content, further modernizing the localization process. Lattice Engines Launches Lead Enrichment MediaPost Predictive marketing company and partner Lattice Engines announced the launch of Lead Enrichment on Wednesday, a new tool that allows marketers to incorporate predictive lead scores into their marketing automation platform or CRM system. Psst! When It Comes To Multi-Channel Marketing, Mobile Makes Everything And Everyone Smarter Adotas An Adotas Q&A with Julie Ginches, CMO, Kahuna, explores the power of mobile to direct multi-channel marketing efforts. INDUSTRY NEWS MTA Spendscape 2016: The Hottest Marketing Software Categories for Marketers in 2016 MarTech Advisor We asked over 300 marketing leaders mainly representing small and medium businesses, to prioritize the most important marketing categories for making technology investments in 2016. The analysis of the marketing spend survey reveals the vendors and technologies where marketers wish to spend more in 2016. These 8 Brands and 3 Tech Topics Dominated the Social Buzz at SXSW Adweek Snapchat, Esurance and VR blew up. 76% of marketers expect to increase digital spending this year: Study Marketing Dive Research from Strata of U.S. agency professionals found 76% expect to increase digital spending this year. Separate research from RSW/US found 91% of agency executives plan on spending more on digital channels over last year and 79.6% of senior expect the same. Marketing, HR leaders need to collaborate, study says Marketing Dive Chief marketing officers and chief human resource officers need to collaborate more often, according to a new paper by experts at Rice University and Kent State University. App install spend up 150 percent, yet costs down, push-enabled users 2X more engaged [reports] Marketing Land Three-fourths of app users will be gone by the third month, says data from Localytics. This Software Could Persuade More People to Open Your Marketing Emails Fortune Persado’s software uses machine learning—and a huge database of campaign performance information about millions of messages—to identify language that is most likely to strike a chord with specific demographic groups. Do marketers now have more IT purchasing power than IT managers? Information Age Research claims two-thirds of marketing managers now call the shots ahead of IT managers when it comes to purchasing new marketing software. Succeeding In The Healthcare Industry As A Marketer Forbes Five years ago, you wouldn’t have seen a healthcare Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) that came from another industry. Today, with reimbursements decreasing and risk shifting, hospitals and health systems have to act like other businesses (see the new model of healthcare marketing): engaging their consumers and prospects, communicating with them, and having relationships with them. They also have to generate demand for their profitable and high-value services. Because this is new territory, the healthcare industry has begun bringing CMOs (and other marketing leaders) in from outside the industry. Why context is king when delivering the marketing message CMO Australia oOh! Media's CMO, Michaela Chan, reports back from SXSW on the key themes influencing modern marketing strategy. Marketers debate what word of mouth marketing means in the digital age CMO (Australia) Experts discuss new influencer marketing strategies that brands are implementing to boost customer engagement. What Instagram's New Algorithm Could Mean for Agencies and Brands Adweek Marketers weigh in on the changes. CMOs Fail to Go Beyond Brand Awareness on LinkedIn & Prove a Clear Social Media ROI Customer Think Recent studies show 87% of B2B sales and marketing leaders are using LinkedIn and other social media platforms but less than 1 in 5 can clearly prove and demonstrate social media ROI. I believe it’s because the attention and efforts are on the top of the funnel instead of thinking about the complete buyer’s journey. Ads on news sites gobble up as much as 79% of users' mobile data Business Insider One of the reasons consumers download mobile ad blockers is the impact ads have on their data plans. Shine, the company that provides that ad blocking technology, claims mobile ads use 10-50% of user's data plans. Forrester Incorporates Fresh Executive Program for Chief Marketing Officers MarTech Advisor Forrester, a leading independent market research company that help clients understand the potential and existing impact of technologies, has launched a new executive program for CMOs. The program expands on an already existing curriculum for CIOs. The aim is to help CMOs in the implementation of operational changes that are focused on digital transformation and customer experience in the present dynamic technology space. B2B Marketing Automation Budgets Grow Alongside Integration and Strategic Challenges KoMarketing Marketing automation systems’ revenue totaled $1.8 billion in 2015, up 50 percent from 2014, according to Raab Associates’ research. Additionally, 65 percent of marketers are increasing their marketing automation budgets for 2016. ARF: Brands Should Be Spending $31 Billion More This Year Than They Are Advertising Age Biggest study in quarter century finds brands need to diversify media. Aussie marketers target automation Warc Marketers in Australia are stepping up their investment in marketing automation software despite half of them struggling to fully understand what it actually entails, according to a new survey. CMO Vs. CIO – Is There Room For Both In The Boardroom? Tech Week Europe Avanade’s Julian Tomison discusses how and why CIOs and CMOs should be working together to move towards the ‘Digital Workplace.' Tumblr looks to repair ad biz with blogless ads, sales team’s return Marketing Land Yahoo has bungled its Tumblr deal, per agency execs, but now Tumblr is tweaking its ad sales strategy to repair its business. Why March Madness is such a massive marketing event: 11.3M average viewers Marketing Dive March Madness has become a major marketing opportunity. According to Koeppel Direct data, last year 126 brands spent $1.163 billion on 30-second TV spots and average viewership for games was 11.3 million. For cross-channel marketing purposes, 2015 also set an all-time record of live video streams at 80.7 million. Agency And Ad Tech Expertise Create A New Breed Of Marketing Talent AdExchanger A handful of ad tech employees who started out at agencies are now returning to senior-level agency roles. And they’re bringing a particularly valuable blend of skills with them. Report: Spending on corporate websites exceeds TV, mobile growing fastest Marketing Land Roughly 49 percent of the more than $470 billion in annual marketing or ad spending in the US is now going to digital channels.

By: Chris Gillespie Posted: March 22, 2016 | Sales It’s an easy mistake to make, and most of us are guilty of it: we make decisions based off our emotions, which sometimes steer us in the wrong way. And as a sales rep, who could blame you? You’re juggling conflicting priorities that pull you in all sorts of different directions. Some days you’re focused on sharpening your product knowledge and other days you’re learning to listen better and uncover compelling events. Support teams want you to set better expectations, marketing wants you drive people to a conference, and your boss needs you to forecast more accurately. With all of these moving parts, your productivity is constantly rising and falling, and if you don’t pay attention to the health of your funnel, your income and job security will always be in flux. But with some driver-awareness, you can learn to steer things towards success. Sales Is Like Driving a Car The analogy I always like to draw is that sales is like driving a car. As you’re driving, you pay attention to the road, speedometer, and mirrors for helpful feedback that keeps you on track. In sales, you also have constant feedback from the people who ignore your emails, the pitches that backfire, and the deals you don’t win. The problem here is that we sometimes start ignoring this feedback because it can be uncomfortable. So instead, we stick to talking about our wins. But the consequences for ignoring this feedback in both selling and driving are the same: after a while, you’ll drive yourself off the road. The first step towards staying on course is learning to accept feedback and resisting the urge to defend yourself. It’s important not to see it as criticism because feedback is the only way you can get better. Once you’ve done this, the best place to start looking for feedback is within your sales pipeline, which in many ways is the quantitative accumulation of all of your sales feedback. Based on what’s not going well, you can steer yourself out of a ditch and onto the performance highway. So, check your mirrors for these three common pipeline problems and learn how to address them to get back on track: 1. Not Enough Leads Coming In While this is a top-of-the-funnel problem, the issue may not be with your marketing or sales process, but with your perspective. If you’re starting from scratch in a new territory, you’re in a good spot. The best thing to do here is identify what makes a “good target” from other successful reps and start going through the list of companies you have. Spend your time narrowing them down into a few manageable lists, then determine youroutreach strategy and get cracking. But if you have a module of set accounts that you’ve been at for a while, you may be suffering from a bias against familiar companies that you refer to as “dead territory”. Your deep knowledge on prospects in the territory might actually be holding you back. Approach these accounts with a fresh mindset, and make a point of going after the ones that are hard to get and challenging yourself to call everyone in that account or ask to be referred in. Flip things on their head and you’ll start seeing results. As motivational speaker, Jim Rohn said “If you truly want something, you’ll find a way. If not, you’ll find an excuse.” So find a way. If you feel that you have already reached out to every possible company, consider that whatever list you’re working with is like looking at your territory through a straw. You start to think that you’re seeing the whole world when it’s really just a fraction. I know this from vast experience and I’ve often found myself crying “I’ve called everyone in the state of New York!” before suddenly getting a fantastic inbound lead. Take a break and get some outside perspective. Tell your peers what you’re running into and get their feedback on new ideas. There are always more approaches, lists, data providers, and strategies. 2. Leads Aren’t Moving Forward Are your prospects getting excited or setting up next steps, but then nothing follows through? Perhaps you need to work on your delivery. Work on your pain discovery process and how you apply your product to solve a prospect’s specific problem. Without getting to the pain point plus a commitment, you’re going to just keep having conversations that go nowhere. So, don’t let your discovery calls end until you have discovered their pain. If there’s no pain, then there’s no commitment to move forward in the process and buy. What does pain sound like? It involves emotionally charged words like fear, worried, serious, terrible, embarrassing, awful, etc. You can discover it through repeated questioning and genuine curiosity, and when you hear those words, dive into them with more questions. Once you have identified a specific pain, demonstrate how your product solves it and secure a commitment to buy. Use a line like, “Great, so if we can help you improve [insert pain point here], is there any reason you wouldn’t be able to sign today?” and repeat back to them what you just heard. This invokes what Psychologist Robert Cialdini calls the “consistency principle” and drastically increases compliance. 3. Full Pipeline, but Nobody Is Ready to Buy Most people have a hard time telling anyone “no”. The natural reaction is to say “maybe” and then try to avoid you. You can fix this by directly telling people that you want them to feel comfortable telling you they’re not interested, and politely explain that you’ll end up wasting a lot of their time chasing them if they can’t. Once you have identified that your prospects are indeed interested and you understand their pain points, you need to figure out why they are not acting immediately. Ask questions to see if they’re seriously committed to solving things. When you do finally get to the bottom of things, their reason for not acting may be something like lack of authority, lack of budget, internal politics, need to make a hire, etc. In this case, you’ve finally reached a concrete core-objection that you can work with them to build a mutual close plan. Feedback is tough, and no one ever said it would be easy to hear. But it’s only through admitting that we’re fallible and listening to our critics that we can identify our blind spots and course correct. Like a driver on the road, if you aren’t constantly checking your mirrors and listening for the honks of other drivers, you’re putting yourself in peril. And the same goes in sales—you need to be able to look at your funnel, see what’s blocking you from merging onto the performance highway, and realize that it might be something that you’re doing. So, it’s time to course correct!

By: Marissa Lyman Posted: March 31, 2016 | Content Marketing Did you know that grammatical errors are the number one cause of work-related aggression? Okay, that’s a lie–but if everyone cared as much about grammar as I did, I can guarantee that misplaced commas, subject-verb disagreement, and improper use of “your” would top the HR incident list. A degree in journalism, numerous media internships, and nearly two years editing the homepage for America’s most-watched cable news network inadvertently turned me into what I recently told a colleague was “The Grammar Hammer” (copyright pending). To me, editing is like a treasure hunt, and finding each error brings a degree of satisfaction or–if it’s published– immense and somewhat irrational rage. The fact of the matter is that, at their core, typos in collateral undermine a marketer’s credibility with customers and prospects. If your company doesn’t know the difference between “there,” “their,” and “they’re,” how are you supposed to be trusted with the hard stuff, like–I don’t know–revenue generation? (For the record, “there” refers to a place or the existence of something, “their” is possessive–like, “Have you seen their new nap room? I am filled with envy.” and “they’re” should be used any time you can substitute it with “they are”–like, “They are going to be so well-rested! I hate them!”) Yes, typos happen. But if you follow the steps outlined below, you can significantly reduce the number of errors in your work, leading to fame, fortune, and marketing glory: 1. See If It Passes the Jargon Test You basically invented marketing–that’s how good you are. In fact, there is no industry term, TLA (three-letter acronym), or obscure marketing reference that you’re not familiar with. Well done, you! Yet not everyone is an expert like you are, so pumping copy full of jargon runs the risk of alienating those in your target audience who aren’t as technologically savvy as you are. You want to sound smart, not pretentious. Your external communications should be engaging and informative, and a major part of this is using appealing vocabulary. There is a time and a place for all of these “inside baseball” terms–like an in-depth how-to guide. But err on the side of general terms that are easy to read through, especially if it’s on an initial call-to-action. When in doubt, have someone in a different department or job function take a gander at your work. If it leaves them scratching their heads, it’s worth an edit. 2. Let It Sit You just wrote the copy for what, in your opinion, is the world’s most beautiful nurture campaign, and you’re getting ready to set it up for deployment. Your quest to finesse your language means that you’ve been staring at the same two paragraphs for the better part of the last two hours. What should you do? Save the copy and walk away. Do it. Tear yourself away. I know you’ve been itching to get this off your plate, but there’s a high probability that if you set it up for distribution now, you’re going to discover once it sends that it’s riddled with errors. The more familiar you are with text, the less likely your brain will pick up on any subtle inconsistencies. That’s why it’s important to give yourself a break, let your brain focus on something else (maybe this is a good time for a walk or a nap), and come back to the text with fresh eyes. You’ll be shocked by what you catch the second time around. 3. Print, Read Out Loud, Repeat You’ve just awoken from your nap–now what? Reread your work on your computer? You could, but–environmentalists, cover your ears!–I recommend printing out what you’re working on. Whether you’re reviewing plain text or the layout of a new ebook, without all that blue light hitting your eyeballs, you’ll be able to focus better. Errors will jump out of the page as obviously as that whale at the end of “Free Willy.” And once you’ve printed your work (or even if you haven’t–shame on you!), read it out loud. Hearing the words instead of reading them will give your brain a different perspective and help it to catch additional errors. These can range from typos and misspellings to sentence constructions that just don’t sound right. Try it the next time you write an email–this is the type of exercise that helps you walk that fine line between “The webinar is public” and “The webinar is …” You get it. 4. Ask the Experts I’ve lauded the power of Google in previous posts, but it’s worth a mention here too. Google is a wonderful source for your grammar needs and can also help to end any editing debates you might be having. It may take some digging, but you’ll usually walk away with knowing what the most common and widely accepted approach is for spelling or punctuation. Just make sure you’re getting your insight from a reputable site and one that is reflective of the grammar in your geographic region. And think about your internal experts as well, often on your Communications or Content team. Does your company prefer the Oxford comma? What solution names are capitalized? Smart marketing departments will implement a set of brand style guides for everyone to adhere to. WHAT. You don’t have one? Congratulations, you’ve just identified an important, proactive opportunity to make your mark. It’s like I always say, quality control is everyone’s problem. 5. Practice Makes Perfect I have literally spent days of my life editing things. DAYS. Do I wish I had been spending this time on a beach somewhere? Maybe. Would my written words benefit from a rich mahogany glow? Absolutely not. The tips above will help and should become standard practice whenever you’re developing external content. However, the only way you’re really going to step up your error-free game is through practice. How do you do that? Edit everything you can get your hands on. Your stuff, your coworkers’ stuff, your competitors’ stuff–everything. You can even search for practice tests as a fun and informative alternative to Sudoku or Candy Crush. There is no limit to how much practice you can do. Now go forth and conquer typos, you smart marketer, you. Are you a spelling and grammar connoisseur? Share your tips for writing spotless marketing copy in the comments below!

By: Elaine Ip Posted: April 12, 2016 | Modern Marketing If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s that nothing comes free. That free trial of Netflix you signed up for? They didn’t offer you it to support your binge watching habit. Ultimately, they wanted you to get a taste of what they’re offering so that you stay a customer. Or what about the newsletter you signed up for from your favorite retailer to receive a 15% discount in your inbox? Soon, those promotional emails on new items and sales will start flooding in. Even the stray kitten I decided to adopt last year wasn’t free. His cute little face didn’t just bring endless cuddles; it came with vet bills and sleepless nights filled with meows and yowls. Why does this matter to you as marketer? We’re all familiar with the idea of give-to-get. To gain something you want, such as new clothes, knowledge, or relationships, you need to be willing to give something up—money, time, effort, etc. As a consumer, it’s likely that you know this already and have given up pieces of your personal information for something in return. On the flip side, as a marketer, your goal is to give your buyers something valuable enough to earn their interest, business, loyalty, and advocacy. So what might these incentives look like? According to eMarketer, when US internet users were asked what would motivate them to share personal information with brands: 100% of respondents would share personal information for cash rewards 77% of respondents would share personal information for significant discounts 68% of respondents would share personal information for fewer steps to get things done 63% of respondents would share personal information for something that inspires something new based on people like them 63% of respondents would share personal information for reminders at the right time on the right device The incentives above aren’t all encompassing, and the best marketers know how to create engaging campaigns that offer their audience something they want for a price that’s well worth the exchange. Let’s take a look at a few recent marketing campaigns that have gotten this down, offering valuable (or just purely entertaining) content for a small price the audience is happy to pay: 1. Powerpuff Yourself There’s a lot I don’t remember from my childhood, but one thing I do recall is the television programs on Cartoon Network. Dexter’s Laboratory, Cow and Chicken, Johnny Bravo, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Ed, Edd n Eddy, and Powerpuff Girls pretty much took over my afterschool life. To promote their Powerpuff Girls reboot, Cartoon Network recently launched “Powerpuff Yourself,” an avatar generator that allows you to become a Powerpuff Girl or Boy. Jill King, SVP of Consumer and Sponsorship Marketing for Turner Broadcasting, parent company of Cartoon Network, told Digiday that “Powerpuff Yourself” was created for fans to “engage and identify with the brand.” Their goal is clear: to revive the legion of Powerpuff Girls fans and boost their program ratings. As I began “Powerpuffing” myself (which I enjoyed way too much), a familiar marketing tool appeared before I could save my avatar: a gated page with a form fill-out. This particular one asked for my birthdate: What can we assume from this clever tactic? Perhaps Cartoon Network is interested in learning about their audience demographics so that they can make sure their programs appeal to the right audience and keep their ratings high. I’m all for supporting the Powerpuff Girl franchise, so I didn’t even hesitate to fill it in. In fact, it helped me fulfill a bucket list goal that I never realized I had. Powerpuff Girls avatar or not, you need to give your audience something worth what they’re giving up. I didn’t even hesitate to fill in my birthday for this fun avatar generator. Now, if they were asking for my full name and address, it might be a different story. If you’re offering educational content, don’t ask your visitors for too much information or don’t even gate it. And with marketing automation technology, you still stand to gain something by tracking the behavior of anonymous website visitors and converting them down the road with web personalization tools. 2. Snapchat Filters Snapchat filters have been all the craze lately. You may have seen screenshots or videos floating around on social media of your friends or family with fun overlays of dog faces, animations, and even face swaps (some that are downright horrifying). The filters are a great way for Snapchat to increase app usage and engagement, with this fun feature exclusive to their app. It might even result in more app downloads from new users, as Snapchat users share pictures with these filters on their other social networks. But this isn’t all that they gain. In fact, these filters are bringing in some major revenue for them. Snapchat’s filters are open to brands through sponsored geofilters, which is really quite genius for “free” product placement that personally incorporates your audience (similar to when consumers wear clothing with a retailer’s logo splashed on top but an instant, digital version). Snapchat geofilters place users directly into a brand’s filter, not only showing their support for the brand, but also influencing their networks to feel positively about it and participate too. Both Snapchat and brands are cashing out on this. In fact, more than 60% of U.S. 13 to 34 year-old smartphone users (Snapchat’s target audience) are Snapchatters, according to Snapchat. And their user base is at 100 million daily active Snapchatters and growing. Being that Snapchat is a mobile app, these sponsored geofilters not only follow users wherever they go, but they are relevant to that particular user’s location. While Snapchat might not be the right channel for every brand, the key message here is to be where your audience is and find ways to interact with them personally and build advocates. There’s nothing more personal than placing a brand’s geofilter on your face. 3. #TacoEmojiEngine Emojis are a popular form of self-expression. 92% of the online population uses emojis. People use them to help communicate their thoughts and build personal relationships, according to the 2015 Emoji Report by Emogi. It’s also a universal language that translates well across languages and regions. Brands have caught on to the emoji phenomenon using them more and more in their advertising, emails, even billboards, and fast food chain Taco Bell is no exception. In fact, they led a movement to add a taco emoji through a Change.org petition, one that garnered 32,797 supporters. When the Unicode Consortium finally approved the taco emoji for iOS 9.1, Taco Bell celebrated with the launch of the #TacoEmojiEngine on Twitter. Just tweet at Taco Bell with a taco emoji along with another emoji, and you’ll receive an instant, personalized response—one of 600 pieces of unique taco-inspired content. Here’s the #TacoEmojiEngine in action: So what’s behind these 600 bits of pure pleasure? Rob Poetsch, Director of Public Affairs and Engagement at Taco Bell, told TechCrunch that they launched the #TacoEmojiEngine to celebrate the long-awaited arrival of the taco emoji and to thank taco lovers everywhere for their support of the emoji, which they had been campaigning for more than a year. But there must be more to this to justify all the time, money, and effort they put into creating this viral campaign, not to mention maintain it. What other objectives might be driving this effort? Let’s taco ’bout it (sorry, I couldn’t resist). Hashtags are a great way to build brand awareness and generate awareness. The #TacoEmojiEngine campaign lives on Twitter, where trends are a way for users to gauge which topics are going viral that they are most likely to care about based on their interests, network, and location. With all the traction #TacoEmojiEngine generated, it successfully became a trending topic, meaning it became something “worthy” of your interest. You might be among the few that first discovered it and if not, then you were likely among the many that jumped on as @tacobell and #TacoEmojiEngine started popping up all over your feed and on the “Trends” sidebar. The impact continues to spread to this day as users still interact with the campaign. There are quite a few things we can learn from Taco Bell, and it’s not just that tacos go with almost anything. As you’re planning your marketing campaign, find something that aligns with your mission and resonates with your audience, and then actively join the movement. REI demonstrated this on Black Friday with their “Opt Outside” campaign that closed their stores and paid its employees to go outside. Also—no surprise here—personalization played a critical factor in the success of this campaign. Taco Bell responds to each tweet with literally the same exact combination the user asked for. Emojis might not be the right way to personalize your content to your audience, but the idea is the same: find what your buyers are interested in and respond with curated content that resonates with them, promptly. Seconds (or maybe even milliseconds) after sending out my tweet, I received a response from Taco Bell. Cartoon Network, Snapchat, and Taco Bell are brands with significantly different business models and audiences, but they’ve got their marketing down to a T (or in Taco Bell’s case, an emoji). These brands have all successfully influenced their audience to want to become part of their marketing campaign, with buyers disclosing their information, engaging with the brand, and sharing on their networks—all on their own terms. So find what resonates with your audience the most and think of creative ways to successfully do the same. What other creative marketing campaigns have you seen that were worth the catch? I’d love to hear about them in the comments below!

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

Quan is responsible for all marketing functions, including digital, ecommerce, trade promotions, training, brand management, marketing automation, analytics, and events. In this discussion, Quan talks about what the Engagement Economy means to him, how that has changed Lennox’s approach, and the importance of balancing digital and personal interactions when connecting with customers. Read the full post on CMO Nation.​