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Marketers Return to Newsletters to Build Loyalty

by Joel Reuter

Not Your Parent’s Old Company Newsletter

Marketers Return to the Basics to Build Loyalty

Print company newsletters are considered by most to be dinosaurs in today’s digital world of where social media, video streaming and email marketing campaigns rule the earth. While the “print and mail” newsletter is nearly dead, the resurgence of its electronic cousin newsletters is enjoying a comeback. That’s according to Marisa Kopec, Service Director with SiriusDecisions. This summer, Marisa issued a research brief titled, “The Rebirth of Corporate Newsletters,” and she provides marketers top advice on how newsletters nurture leads, accelerate pipeline opportunities and provide account based marketing.

At the same time, Aprimo recently reintroduced eNewsletters to our customers, partners and prospects. Why? Anyone who receives information from Aprimo marketing knows we strive to provide useful tools to make marketer’s jobs more strategic and productive. Yet, in our internal marketing meetings, we always came back to a need for an interactive channel that tied all of our nurturing campaigns, thought leadership papers, resources, tools in best practices in a summarized, hyperlinked and easy-to-digest resource. We also wanted to turn up the dial on our listening meter.

Building from scratch and using best practices research, we recently launched our first edition. Quite frankly, it wasn’t without a number of immediate opportunities for improvement.

To use the words of Susan McKittrick, analyst and senior consultant for the Patricia Seybold Group in her recently published article, “B2B Marketers Prepare to Get the Most Out of Today’s Technology Tools,” she states “With buyers in control, marketing practices fundamentally change… from doing it right the first time (or not) to doing it better each time.”

And that’s the point: we in marketing beat ourselves up all the time to make it perfect right out of the gate. We often become paralyzed for the fear it’s not 100 percent perfect. We’re challenged by not knowing all the dynamics of successful campaigns, and have a tendency to try to get it perfect because our campaigns are so visible.

We have over 400 professionals here at Aprimo who know marketing, email deliverability, dynamic HTML, design, and hundreds of things I can’t even imagine about delivering the best in marketing. As the eNewsletter editor, I knew I’d be getting a few pointers after launching our first edition.

I was right. My inbox was filled with great suggestions – a list of ideas to consider as we do it better each time. While all of these ideas were already on our list of improvements, other comments brought insights to our blind spots. These experts are great coaches, and I feel fortunate having them help us make it better each time.

As I provide insights in our journey to eNewsletter perfection, my first piece of advice to communications and marketing professionals is to begin knowing that you simply have to start somewhere. While you strive for perfection, understand you might not have all the answers right away. Make the commitment that you’ll evaluate and analyze how you can do it better each and every issue. Listen to your readers and learn from peers. Steal great ideas from other companies.

Don’t become paralyzed in the marketing process if you don’t have all the answers. Dive in, and prepared to get soaked with knowledge.

Interested in getting our eNewsletter? Please register now. We thank you for reading and welcome your feedback.

Joel Reuter

Director of Global Communications

Editor, Aprimo’s eNewsletter

joel.reuter@aprimo.com

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Location-Based Services May be a Trap

by Joel Reuter

PR Playbook: Location-Based Services May be a Trap

Geolocation services – also known as location based services (LBS) – such as Foursquare or Google Buzz -- are a marketers dream. But as a public relations professional, there are growing concerns that pin-point locations may be a soft underbelly for risk.

While recent studies have shown that U.S., adoption has been slow compared to other regions of the world – the technology promises to pin-point customers at the point of purchase. There are thousands of creative ways to use LBS in today’s marketing world.

Think of it. I’m in a grocery store, browsing over the breakfast aisle and instantly, the store pushes a 2-for-1 offer for Kellogg’s Pop Tarts on my iPhone. I capture that offer and nab two boxes.

Foursquare is one of the hottest social media trends this year, estimated to be signing between 10-15,000 users a day. Twitter promotes its “Twitter Places” functionality and Facebook will soon launch its own check-in feature.

Public relations professionals beware – those “Add your location” options on Twitter and other social media sites can be a trap. Therefore, make sure you properly consult your company on the pros and cons of using these tools. Consider the following potential scenarios:

Let’s say you have a CEO who’s active on Twitter. Your company is in the midst of addressing a crisis and your CEO is updating the world through his/her account. What could be worse than seeing his/her updates from a golf course in the Bahamas when the crisis is happening somewhere else?
Do you really want to broadcast locations of your executives? If your company is rumored to be in negotiations of acquiring another firm in a small town in Iowa – and your headquarters are in Florida – it doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or blogger) to figure out that he/she is in negotiations if they are Tweeting updates from Iowa.
Please rob me. Then there’s the whole “I’m traveling away from home,” privacy concern. Tell the world that you’re traveling in Paris and you’ll come home to an empty house. PleaseRobMe.com is a website that gives awareness to privacy concerns and the tools you need to know to protect yourself. Savvy thieves know how to search people who are traveling and find their home through on-line telephone directories and other databases.

According to Your Security Resource, there are ways to protect yourself:

Don’t link your home address to your account. This is the easiest way for thieves to find out where you are not. Most services either won’t make this information public or will allow you to choose what information you share. Pay special attention to ensure control of this information.
Don’t use your full name. Robbers can easily look up your name if there is a record of your home address available anywhere online or even in the local phone book. To limit broadcast of where you are, hide your full name.
Be selective about which services you allow to pinpoint your location. Many applications will automatically ask you if they can find out where you are so they can offer you content and services most useful to you. Allow them access only where you feel most comfortable.
Be selective about who sees your location. In social networking apps involving your location, set limits on who is able to see that information -- everyone, all your contacts, select contacts or no one.
Read the privacy policy. Above all, arm yourself with information on how each service works. Each privacy policy should indicate how the service uses any of the data it requests from you.

Location-based services can be as innocuous as the GPS-enabled maps you use in your car or on your mobile device, and they can even help save lives. But be vigilant about your use of them, and you will enjoy only their benefits

Most Top Executives Don’t Use Social Media

The good news is there’s a lot of room for you to brief your executives. According to a survey by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Research Foundation and Buck Consultants (August 3, 2010), most top executives do not participate in internal (60 percent) or external (62 percent) social media. Fewer than half the organizations surveyed have policies in place to address employee use of internal and external social media. Approximately half the organizations surveyed do not measure the effectiveness of internal and external social media.

But it’s sure to change as PR pros continue adopting social media channels.

To download the complete survey report, visit http://www.iabc.com/researchfoundation

Mobile Marketing: It’s More Than Just Texting

by J. Chamberlain

Have you been keeping up with the mobile ad wars between Google and Apple? The wars started back in November 2009 when Google announced plans to buy the AdMob network. Apple responded by launching its new iAd network, which sends ads to iPhone users.

The bottom line for online marketers like you is that mobile marketing is big. (Why else would Google and Apple be fighting over it?)

Mobile marketing is emerging as an effective channel for instantly getting messages out to customers and prospects. Consider this:

According to SNL Kagan, virtually 100 percent of Americans will have mobile devices by the year 2013.
Punchkick Interactive & Mobile Marketing Watch claims there are twice as many “texters” as email users worldwide.
Forrester Research estimates that this half-billion dollar industry will surpass $1.25 billion in 2014.

Which apps are savvy marketers using to reach their mobile audience?

The Technology Behind the Buzz

Not long ago, mobile marketing mainly consisted of texting, or Short Message Service (SMS) communication. Traditional SMS marketing involved sending very short messages to the cell phones of customers and prospects.

Within a few short years, we’ve come a long way. Mobile apps are making life better for businesses and consumers alike. For example, Foursquare encourages people to explore their neighborhoods, and then rewards them with points and badges when they try new places. Yelp helps people find new restaurants, shops, and entertainment, and lets them share their opinions in a highly active online community.

In addition, the geolocation features in HTML 5 will enhance proximity marketing – marketing that focuses on delivering targeted content to users based on their current location. Suppose you run a store in a shopping mall. You might send a special discount offer to the mobile phones of your registered customers whenever they are in the mall, tempting them to stop by.

Why Think Mobile?

Several of the main benefits of mobile marketing are obvious. You can reach your audience no matter where they are. When they’re in the neighborhood, you can lure them through the doors of your business. And a special offer sent to a cell phone or Blackberry has a built-in urgency that an email sent to a computer can’t match.

But don’t forget that mobile marketing also allows for two-way communication. Consumers can do much more than simply pay from their phones – they can also check account balances and receive your targeted ads. And mobile marketing is more personal than other forms of marketing. It allows you to consider geography along with all the other variables that affect your one-to-one communications.

B2B and B2C marketers alike can think of providing access to their services or products via mobile. Does your website render well on mobile devices? What about your emails? Can your mobile customers get work done when they aren't chained to their desktop or laptop? Aprimo is enabling mobile marketers to keep their marketing going with mobile access to our application. We also help our mobile sales team access and distribute content, send marketing emails and view prospect status and profiles via mobile. Look to put your information where your customers are.

Adding Mobile to Your Mix

So, how can you begin to benefit from mobile marketing? Here are some guidelines:

1. Keep in mind who you’re marketing to. According to a recent article by G. Simms Jenkins, 64% of business decision-makers regularly check their email on mobile devices – but the average smartphone user is between 18 and 44 years old. Bottom line? You’re reaching out to a broad – and constantly expanding – market.

2. Allow your current customers to opt in to mobile communications from you. It’s another way to build loyalty.

3. Use mobile apps to get your audience more involved at tradeshows. Remember: mobile communications at such an event can feel more urgent and personal, and can help draw people to your exhibit.

4. Track your mobile marketing results into your marketing system. This is a good way to nurture leads and amplify your social marketing efforts.

5. Finally, be mobile-friendly with all your online marketing. Because so many people now check their email on mobile devices, make sure to provide a link that lets recipients view your outbound emails in mobile format.

Good luck – and I hope to see you on my iPhone soon.

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Lead Quality and Scoring: Can it bring about world peace or at least will sales like marketing more?

by Gregory Hennessy

Note: Few people know this, but Aprimo offers an excellent Lead Management system as part of its Multichannel Campaign Management capabilities. I have personal experience implementing it for a few happy B-to-B marketing customers. Aprimo Lead Management functionality includes a lead portal to view and screen leads, an integration with Sales Force Automation (SFA) applications like Salesforce.com, territory lead assignment rules to assign leads to sales, a method to score leads, and a process flow designer to define how leads are managed and routed. It is designed for marketers to collect prospect information and generate leads for the sales team. This blog discusses one element of Aprimo Lead Management: lead scoring and lead quality. Now back to our regularly scheduled blog entry . . .

Anytime marketing delivers leads to sales, there seems to be an age old conflict where sales complains that the marketing leads are not good enough and marketing says sales is not working the marketing leads hard enough, or at all.  In sales' defense, and I hate defending sales, marketing does collect a lot of leads, often from any response to a web form, and throws the leads over the wall to sales. In marketing's defense, marketing is often incented and measured based on the quantity of leads generated - not quality.  This troubled relationship may be a product of out-of-sync objectives and performance metrics. Aren't we all really just working within our little mazes to find the fastest and easiest way to the cheese? That was a rhetorical question, and the answer is yes.

Lead scoring is considered a way to remedy this issue - at least a way for marketing to generate better quality leads. The lead score is a numeric value built from a couple of types of information - profile and historical activity information. Profile information is information about the contact or the company like title (VP, CEO, CFO, Manager) and industry vertical (technology, financial services, healthcare, etc.) and company size (greater than 1000 employees).   Historical activity information includes the contacts past web form responses and even past web site page visits. The historical activity score can increment higher based on each web site visit to a product page or a past request for a white paper or even a specific response to a set of qualifying questions on a web form. When the lead score goes beyond a specified threshold, based on both profile information (best fit) and history (most interest), a lead is generated for the product category of interest.

In theory and in practice if the score is built well, the higher the score then the better qualified the lead. The contacts from the best verticals and departments with the best titles will be scored higher then the contacts from poor verticals, unrelated departments, and with inappropriate titles. Also, the contacts that have answered qualifying questions favorably will be given higher scores then those who did not. Contact that have recently attended a webinar or downloaded a whitepapers, filled out a form, and/or browsed the corporate web site will be score higher than someone whe just filled out a web form.

Challenges to consider when implementing lead scoring

The number of leads generated will initially go down. I will let you in on a little secret regarding scoring leads that my clients are often surprised about when it actually happens. If you currently send most all your marketing responses out as leads to sales, after you implement a lead scoring system the number of leads will go down. It will go down because you went from little to no qualifying criteria to a set of more stringent qualifying rules to build the lead score that must be met before the prospect can qualify.  Lead volumes can return to the previous levels if your marketing activity increases to compensate for the tougher qualification.

A previous client was unsuccessful implementing a lead scoring system, but not lead management, because of this issue concerning lead volume decrease. This marketing organization was measured and incented on generating a specific number of leads per campaign and generating a specific volume of leads per quarter. The lead scoring system started to drop these volumes. Because of this drop, the marketing department quickly abandoned the lead scoring system because it did not allow them to meet their metrics for the number of leads generated in a campaign or quarter. Even the sales organization was part to blame here, because sales had become dependent on these higher lead volumes and was staffed to handle a flood of leads. They were also incented, trained, and accustomed to churning quickly through a bunch of suspect leads. So, any drop in lead volumes with an improvement in quality would also mean that sales would have to alter their staffing plans and how their sales team works leads.

How can you manage this? Prepare the organization for the quality of leads to go up and the quantity of leads to go down. Revise target metrics for marketing leads generated down while increasing the quality metric targets up like percent qualified, contacted, interested, opportunities generated, and closed sales. Manage change within the sales organization to start working leads differently to work every lead, spend more time on each lead with more contact attempts and time invested per lead, and provide better notes or information on each lead. Also, make up for the smaller volumes of better qualified leads with sales follow-up calls for marketing campaigns and seminar and event drives.

Lead generation qualification will become more complex. If you are an organization that offers a wide rage of products across numerous categories, lead scoring may be more complex for you to implement. The reason for this is around how you score historical activity. If prospect "Mr. A" downloads a white paper for product Z in category M and then fills out a form expressing an interest in product X in category O, then what will "Mr. A's" lead score be and will a lead be generated for product Z and or category M or for product X and or category O?  There is no right answer here - so it depends on your rules. That is what makes lead scoring complex.

To remedy this, generate marketing leads specific to a product or product category, then you will want to track activity like white papers downloaded, demos downloaded, webinars attended to a specific to a product or product category and lead score. In a nutshell, you would not want to generate a lead for sprockets because that was the last web form the prospect filled out after they have been researching widgets for 3 months. They should be contacted regarding widgets.

How can you manage this? If you have a small number of products or product categories, then you can probably build separate historical activity component of the lead score by product or product category. If you have lots of products and a few product categories, then create a few historical activity lead scores by product category. In situations where there is way too many products or product categories, then consider building the historical activity component of the lead score on demand. For example, Mr. A responds to a marketing campaign for product Z. Build the score from Mr. A's profile, from his current web form responses plus add a query to look at historical activity for the same product or product category in the last 30 - 90 days. The historical activity component increases with the amount of recent activity for the same type of product.

Another prositive effect of the ad hoc building of the historical activity score is that the lead is created in the context of a campaign and for a specific product or effort. Lead scoring is often divorced from any specific campaign, because a lead could be generated from activities or responses across many campaigns. This is challenging when you want to report which campaign generates more leads than another.  The ad hoc building of the score per campaign still tightly associates the campaign with the response and subsequently the lead while allowing the marketer the capability to impute interest based on past responses for the same or similar products.

Other things you can try first to improve lead quality to sales
First, reduce duplicate leads for the same contact. Aprimo automatically merges duplicates. but many systems treat each response as a separate lead and contact. Buy Aprimo or add a merge and duplicate reduction system to your prospect to lead processing.

Second, make sure all leads have the minimum required contact information.  Any leads passed to sales should have some minimum required information like name, email address, and phone number. There is a trade off here, the more information that you require then the lower the response. But the more information that you require, the higher the quality except for bogus entries like Mickey Mouse. At least look at the amount of information provided as an element of the lead score (quality score) with the score going higher as the profile information is fully populated. If you can ask for name and address information and validate the address - that is an even better indicator of quality.

Third, create and use your qualifying questions and definitely score the qualifying questions. If someone says that they have a budget and he or she has to make a decision in 30 days make sure you score this so that these leads are immediately sent to sales. Talk to sales and let them tell you what qualifying question responses should be sent to sales immediately and which ones should be nurtured. Also, when someone says that they are making a decision in 9 months or a year, then send them an email 3 months before that time to see if they would like to talk with a sales professional or change their level of interest.

This last point is going to seem obvious, but hey doesn't most everything I write about here seem obvious after you read it.   Fourth, do not create a lead for a prospect's first response. Duh. Unless the individual answers a qualifying question high enough on their first web form, do not send them immediately to sales to become a lead. Look for some minimal level of activity over the last 30 - 90 days. So, make sure the individual has demonstrated a pattern of activity over time that shows they are really interested before creating a lead for that person.

In closing
I can't promise you that if you implement lead scoring or any of the above steps to improve lead quality that the sales people will start inviting you out to their summer homes or boats. However, marketing should take steps to improve lead quality and take the emphasis off of lead quantity. Also, you might be wondering what do you do with all those other prospects that responded but did not qualify to become a lead. Well, these known prospects have provided you with product preference information and contact information for marketing to keep nurturing them until they are ready to talk with sales. Aprimo is designed to maintain these prospects and maintain a dialogue with them until the prospect self-qualifies as a lead. Good hunting.

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Contact Management Strategy - How many times can I communicate with my customers and prospects before they get !#@#$!?

by Gregory Hennessy

Marketers on the street often come up to me and ask, "How many times can I contact my customers and prospects?" Actually, marketers do not come up to me and ask me this question, but they should be asking someone this question. Actually, I decided to write this blog because I am surprised how many organizations do not manage the number of time customer and prospect communications much at all. In some cases customers and prospects are being barraged with marketing communication to the point that the communication is becoming less and less effective.

Opt-Outs First
There are customers and prospects that you should not be contacting at all. These are individuals that have asked to be removed (opted-out) from your marketing communication. If someone asks to no longer receive your marketing messages by all channels, or by a specific marketing channel of email, mail, or call, then they are probably not interested in your messages or in receiving your offers via that specific channel. The customer or prospect by providing you this information has just saved you money, increased your response rate, and has provided you a preference. So, you should use that information.

Managing these opt-outs is not JUST a good idea, it is the law. There are a variety of regulations enforcing opt-outs. The CAN-SPAM act covers email marketing and requires that you provide a way for your customers and prospects to opt-out of future marketing emails.  The opt-out method can be a link to an opt-out web page or a reply email with unsubscribe in the subject line. CAN-SPAM applies to commercial emails focused on advertising or selling products and services. Transactional emails reporting account balances, shipping, and other information are not covered by CAN-SPAM and do not have to provide an opt-out method.   Also, I am not legal council, so please check with your legal professional regarding the specific opt-out requirements for your organization and marketing.

There are other regulations covering telemarketing opt-outs (TSR or the Telemarketing Sales Rule) that require marketers to apply the National Do Not Call list and maintain and use a do not call list for your organization. For direct mail, there are no do not mail regulations, yet. However, because of the high cost of direct mail every direct mail marketer should have their own do not mail list and use it. The DMA also offers its own national do not mail suppression list to members. For this and other compliance information, check out the Direct Marketing Association's compliance portal here. Please note, I am only discussing U.S. regulations in this blog. Each country and/or economic region will have its own regulations. As I said before, check with your own legal council about these compliance issues.

Number of contacts - There is no silver bullet
Once you can drop the prospects and customers that do not want to be contacted at all, you can concentrate on how often you communicate to the others. Okay, if you are looking for the silver bullet answer to this question here, you won't find it. It doesn't exist. But you can start finding it for yourself.  It is a complex issue. There is a delicate balance between the power of repeating a message and overwhelming and diluting your messages with too many messages. You definitely don't want to compete with your own messaging or worse start increasing the number of people who are opting-out or unsubscribing from your marketing messages all together.

The first step to implementing a contact management strategy is to define some basic contact management rules. The rules should specify how many times your marketing organization will contact a person in a set period of time. The best rules are marketing channel centric, that is a rule defines how often you will contact the person via email, call, and mail per week or month. Do not create a rule with large time frames like 10 times a year, because this would still allow a marketer to contact the person 10 times in one day. This seems obvious, but a client once asked me to implement an only contact 10 times a year direct mail rule.

At this point, you can use some customer research or anecdotal evidence or gut feel to define your initial rules. I usually suggest something like no more than 1 email per week, a direct mailing once every two weeks, and a telemarketing effort (could include multiple attempts) only once a month. Once you have your initial contact management rules implemented and established, you can start testing variants. You can pull a segment of customers and market to that segment more frequently and compare overall results versus your baseline. Whenever changing your contact management rules, monitor your opt-outs from the test group as well as response rates. You want to increase response rates without significantly increasing opt-outs.

Exceptions -every rule has one
There are exceptions to every rule even contact management rules. Usually, informational messages from marketing are required for regulatory purposes or other reasons. These messages are not counted as a contact and they are not suppressed because of contact management rules either. The customer or prospect must receive this information because it is important or required.  It is not promotional in nature.   Really, these informational messages should be rare from marketing.

Subscriptions are another special case. Opt-in subscriptions are not counted against the total number of contacts because the prospect or customer has chosen to receive those messages.  Subscriptions are also semi-promotional and informational in nature. The customer or prospect wants to receive these messages and if they did not, the individual can unsubscribe from them. If you enforced and counted these contacts against your contact management rules, then the subscribers would not receive their subscriptions and marketing could not reach the subscribers - your most engaged individuals - to make them offers. So, subscriptions are a special case.

Responses to customers and prospects asking for more information are another exception.  If the customer or prospect asks to have a white paper emailed to them, these emails should not count against the individuals' totals or be suppressed because the customer or prospect received too many emails. I would also argue that confirmation messages, usually emails, and thank yous are not counted as well.

What you want to regulate and control with contact management rules are the promotional and unsolicited marketing messages to your customers and prospects.

Another Exception - Communication plans
There is another unique exception that requires some special handling and some variation to your contact management rules. In some cases, you will want to run a customer through a series of messages to completion without interruption. This could be a series of welcome emails, a renewal series, or multiple invites to an upcoming seminar via mail and email. During this time, you want the customer or prospect's undivided attention. You do not want other random messages to appear. The contact management rules would only apply at the beginning of the multi-touch communication plan, but no contact management suppression rules would be applied after the first contact in the series. Also, the records would be locked for a longer period of time then your normal contact management rules - weeks or months even.

This lock period can be managed by setting a lock date for each individual in the campaign. Standard exclusion rules applied to each campaign could then suppress these locked individuals. This will prevent the individual from being promoted by other campaigns until after the specified lock date. This lock date could also be used to reserve control groups that are held back from all marketing promotions for baseline comparisons of marketing lift. What is marketing lift you ask? Marketing lift is the amount of additional revenue or responses that marketing promotions to individuals generate compared to the control group that did not receive any marketing promotions.

Technology
Multichannel Campaign Management and eMarketing systems, like Aprimo, provide capabilities to manage opt-outs and to manage contact management rules. In fact, these applications make it easy to manage your opt-outs, contact management rules, and contact strategy. The components of the system are simple. A contact history table or communication log to track which customer or prospect received which marketing message or offer via which channel and when.  Also, the ability to apply predefined filters or queries for each contact management rule to suppress records that have already been contacted more than the allotted time. A lock table can also be created and written to in order to use in queries to enforce promotion blackout periods for specific individuals. Multichannel Campaign Management solution has these components out of the box, all you need to provide are the contact management rules.

Think about it
So, I have not provided you with any silver bullets regarding implementing a contact management strategy. However, there are some guidelines and practices to consider. The only limitation to putting a contact management strategy in place is the internal discipline and processes of marketing. Technology, like Aprimo, simply makes it easier to execute and manage.

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B2B Marketing Digital Conference in London

by Robin Collyer

Thanks to Joel and James for a thought-provoking event on Wednesday - Pull Marketing, Social CRM and Influencer Marketing - Twitter Tag #b2b21c

Stephen Mills from O2 advised that you only have 4 seconds to capture interest so RELEVANCY is key if you want to drive campaign results.

Given the volume of communications that we are all trying to manage, you can see why Marketing Management Technology is so popular right now.

Will Schnabel explored the shift of power from vendor to buyer in the sales process - the hunted become the hunters and use multiple channels to inform themselves (Tom Chapman advised that 1 in 5 tweets mentions a brand, product or service). With 70% of leads not being "ready now", event trigger marketing and lead automation are no longer optional tools for the B2B marketer.

Katie and Pamela from Volume informed us that 69% B2B decision makers use social networks and 90% participate in video - thanks for sharing the Oracle case study on Enterprise Performance Management TV.

David Beard re-enforced the message that Sage don't just do finance software! They are doing a great job "keeping the conversation going" around their CRM solutions and interacting with any interest they observe.

"Too much noise" was the message from James Hanson. Every prospect you are speaking to is likely to have at least 5 influencers. Empathy is key - understand what drives the influencers and adapt your marketing plans accordingly. Thanks to Drew Nicholson for sharing the influencer experience at Cisco Webex.

Great energy from Prof Merlin Stone. Are we approaching a tipping point similar to the explosion of telephone marketing 20 years ago? Web 2 has given the customer parity with the supplier this time. Hyper-competition makes planning very difficult - best to be guided by how you would like your customers to talk about you.

A stimulating debate, led by Scot Mckee from Birddog and Steve Kemish from Cyance, forced us to consider whether traditional forms of B2B marketing were dead and that we all need to migrate to digital. Despite protestations from Joel, the panel - and audience - migrated to the middle ground and the much maligned word "Integration".

Guess I'll have to be careful about how much I reference the ability to integrate all your marketing efforts in Aprimo Marketing Studio!

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How to get the most out of your Campaign Management implementation

by Gregory Hennessy

There seems to be a lot of confusion out there in marketing land, the real world from my technology vendor land, about how to get the best return from your Multichannel Campaign Management (MCM) system. Just to be clear, this MCM super category includes list selection, eMarketing, email marketing, and lead management functionality.

Insanity
They say, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. This is the same with MCM.  If you market the same way after implementing MCM as you did before implementing it, you are not going to get significantly improved results just because you have a system now.

Your marketing has to change to take advantage of the strengths of the MCM system. For example, a marketing department that performs a lot of small ad hoc or one off campaigns and then continues to perform a lot of ad hoc and one off campaigns after the implementation will not enjoy any significant efficiency gains from MCM.  The marketing department will just be doing the same marketing in a new system.  Sure, the marketing department will be more organized and eventually gain some productivity improvements, but not the double digit percentage improvement that was projected in the business case.

How can you get more value from your MCM implementation?

1. Automate. Start thinking about what marketing programs can run unattended or automated.   MCM is your never tiring, unrelenting, marketing cyborg that will keep chugging until the chip is ripped from its server.   Leverage this capability as much as possible. Good candidates for automation include - New Customer programs, eShopping Cart abandonment programs, automated information request, eFulfillment of white papers and newsletters, eSurvey marketing programs, lapsed customer programs, lead nurturing or research, alerts, renewals, new product notices, etc.

2. Communicate.  Stop thinking about marketing in increments of a single email or touch point and automate the entire communication plan across all marketing channels. The overhead of lots of one off emails or mailing pieces makes these small campaigns inefficient. Also, your marketing can improve if you change from singleton efforts to having an ongoing conversation with your customers. This multi-touch communication process through repetition makes your target customers gradually more aware of your company and more comfortable with your marketing. They retain your message better, and it gives them more opportunities to respond. This all adds up to improved response at lower cost. Many MCM systems are designed to run these types of multi-touch programs.

3. Consolidate and Integrate. In with the new and out with the old. If you want immediate efficiency gains for your marketing team, think of the many diverse systems with which your team interacts daily or weekly that can be eliminated and replaced with one marketing platform (cough, like Aprimo). This is simple math, each redundant system eliminated also eliminates the costs of supporting the systems - licensing, support and maintenance, and administration costs.

Also, look at systems that your marketing team must update that often require manual effort or double entry. These systems are great candidates for integration. Think of the time that could be saved by eliminating the double entry of invoices, the manual uploading of leads in the SFA system, the manual loading of lists into a campaign from other internal marketing data sources and/or the manual uploading of offers into your customer service system.  With a few targeted integration projects, you can make your team more efficient. MCM systems, those based on a marketing platform, can become your integrated marketing information hub. Hah! You can't do that in a spreadsheet.

4. Personalize-ate. Okay, I could not think of another word ending in ate.  MCM systems provide marketing greater access to your data and it is designed to deliver more personalized content. I am not talking about just being able to slap a first or last name in the email text or put in a different picture in an email based on the customer's demographic. That personalization is very cool and powerful. The personalization that I am talking about is more about getting personal with your customers.

MCM offers you greater access to your customer data, especially transaction data like purchases or web visits. Use it to answer questions about your customers. What products or product categories does your customer purchase most often? What did they purchase last year during the Christmas season? When do they purchase? Did they stop purchasing? What do they view on your web site most often? Did they move or change titles recently? Answer these questions and others to better target your customers with the right message and offers.  Also, build models and scores using tools like SPSS/IBM Modeler to mine for hard to find patterns in your data. Access this wealth of customer behavior with your MCM system to deliver more personal and relevant messages to your customers.

Don't Procrastinate.  These headings are getting a little silly. Good news. This is the last one. Start planning now for how your future multichannel campaign management system will allow you to do more and make more. Or, if you already have an MCM system, think of ways to further leverage its capabilities to your company's benefit. There are so many opportunities to gain value from an MCM system, now just do it.

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Social Media Banned?

by Kelly Turner

I just read an interesting article and wanted to share it with all of you...

54 Percent of CIOs ban Social Media At Work
October 13, 2009 By Lisa Barone

An interesting new study shows that social media still "can’t get no respect" in the workplace. According to a study by Robert Half Technologies, 54 percent of CIOs prohibit any social media use in the office. That’s a serious number.

Robert Half Technology, a leading provider of information technology (IT) professionals on a project and full-time basis, conducted phone surveys of more than 1,400 CIOs from companies across the United States who employ at least 100 employees.

CIOs were asked one question: Which of the following most closely describes your company’s policy on visiting social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, while at work?

Their responses:
Prohibited completely: 54%
Permitted for business purposes only: 19%
Permitted for limited personal use: 16%
Permitted for any type of personal use: 10%
Don’t know/no answer: 1%

I have to admit, in the age of Zappos, Comcast and Dell, I was a bit surprised to learn that more than half of CIOs have banned social media in-house. Executive Director of Robert Half Technology Dave Willmer noted that the reason for the ban may be due to social media’s tendency to “divert employees’ attention” away from pressing work priorities in favor of communicating with friends. He’s right. It probably does to some degree. But it can also be an incredible customer retention and sales tool. And frankly, the folks misusing social media are probably the same ones checking email all day. If that’s the reason you’re shying away from social media, you’re not competing in today’s world.

Something that also caught my eye was the division between using social media for business use vs. using it for personal use. Because they’re pretty much the same thing. The goal behind social media is to make your business personal. And if you don’t understand that, you’re going about it the wrong way.

This sentiment was also noted in a post by Heidi Miller where she shows how social media isn’t about the companies. It’s about the people behind them. Comcast isn’t on Twitter. Frank Eliason is. All the Dell representatives you meet have actual names and faces. We get the tidbits of their lives right along with the company agenda. That’s what people fall in love with. It’s the people behind these companies that make them interesting and make customers engaged and want to do business with them. By trying to separate business from personal, you lose a lot of that sentiment. You take the heart out of it.

I think in the next few years, we’re going to see social media being more and more accepted into the workplace. Truth is, there’s no greater customer relations tool out there.

The survey also offered some tips for protecting your professional reputation while on social media, including:
•Know what’s allowed
•Use caution
•Keep it professional
•Stay positive
•Polish your image
•Monitor yourself

I think it’s about talking to employees, instilling responsibility in their words and tweets, educating them on how to use social media correctly, but then also giving them room to be human. No one is positive all the time. No one is that polished. I don’t think employers should be leashing every single one of their employees into the world of social media, but there is a solid place for it and simply banning it from the workplace is not the way to go about it. Educate; don’t lag behind.

For any of you readers out there who work for a company with such a ban, have your CIO give Aprimo a call - we can help you overcome those social media hurdles and more.

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Who is in the Driver's Seat of your Marketing Machine?

by Kelly Turner

I have a big confession to make. I am completely un-American. I say this because unlike majority of the population - I have absolutely NO interest in car shopping....not only do I have no interest, I pretty much hate it. I want a car that runs and gets me from A to B and sure - I have preferences on style, make and model, but I have no real interest in actually shopping for it. I would prefer someone take my money and go purchase me a car and say, "Here you go...drive this for the next ten years and then I will come back and shop for you again." Perfect!

I see this in companies that I work with all of the time. They are not in the driver's seat when it comes to marketing. They have no desire to do it and yet, they know that A. they need it and B. that they have a preference on how it gets done, just little interest in implementing it. These companies view marketing as a chore - enter marketing technology. Enter Aprimo Marketing Studio.

Our job here is complete those chores - be the Tylenol for the CMO. Marketers are pushed further and faster, to deliver more, in a time of budget cuts and department downsizing. You have to be effective and efficient and you can't do it all. I will be the first to say that we can't do it ALL, but our marketing software is a robust engine- it can help with social media management, web analytics solutions, microsites, and marketing lead management.

Consider it the dashboard that holds the keys to your marketing success and can drive your marketing engine.

So...let's go for a drive....

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Search Engine Optimization Tools

by Darrin Strain

Technology for marketing takes on many forms. In this post, I will focus on some great web analytics tools marketers can use for marketing information technologies, search engine marketing and overall Website health.

Google Search Tools
Google Webmaster Tools provides you with detailed reports about your pages' visibility on Google. Google Search Tool will list back links, pages indexed, cached page and related links.

Yahoo Site Explorer
Yahoo Site Explorer allows you to explore all the web pages indexed by Yahoo! Search. View the most popular pages from any site, dive into a comprehensive site map, and find pages that link to that site or any page.

Mike's Marketing Tools
Search Engine Rankings offers free, instant, on-line reports of web site rankings in eight top search engines and web directories, including Google, Yahoo! Search, Bing (MSN), AOL, AltaVista, AllTheWeb, Yahoo! Directory, and Open Directory (Dmoz).

These are just a few of the many free tools available. Do a Google search and you will find many, many others.

Let us know about your favorite search tool. Post a reply and tell us about it.

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Technical Marketing in a Marketing Software World

by Richard Clogg

Well I have to admit, the notion of putting my thoughts into the open world did seem a little daunting to me. I am the technical marketing manager for Aprimo, a marketing automation software company. Seems like the word marketing is used a lot in my title and role :). A few years ago, the words technical and marketing together would have seemed strange, but its amazing just how much marketing is reliant on technology these days, especially in my world. Now, technical marketing is not a role unique to Aprimo, but it just so happens that we are a marketing software automation company.

Interactive Marketing, Direct Marketing, Digital Assets, Lead Management, Social Media - to name a few, are arenas we play in every day and all are completely online. Every day we are solving problems for marketers, andthrough the use of our software.

I dare to think where we would be without the Internet, email or social media (I wouldn't be writing this post for one). The direct mail trend is dropping while interactive and email channels are growing exponentially. Every email sent, opened and clicked can be tracked. This is all valuable information, which is then used to further engage and target each prospect or customer. This information is gold to a marketer and its all using technology, our technology in this case. As you may have guessed I am a technology junkie and I am lucky to be involved in one of the hottest growing industries in the world.

I believe we have only scratched the surface of what we can do with technology and marketing, and I am so excited to be part of this exciting industry.

Being my first blog, I seemed to have waffled a bit. As you can see my passion is technology and how we can use it to solve marketers problems. If this is something that interests you then watch this space, well this blog anyway.

Before I go, I leave you with with this story that really tickled me. Sometimes I think we are not as advanced as we think.

More to come next time....

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Blogging Ages & Stages

by Kelly Turner

A year ago, I didn't follow ANY blogs. I now follow four, plus the two I write....(kinda have to subscribe to those) so we're up to six! A year ago, I didn't author any blogs and as forementioned, I now write two. Two years ago - I hate to admit, but I don't remember even thinking that blog was a word! Could have been longer than that - I can barely remember last week, let alone two years ago. In any case - here I am...subscribing to blogs, researching blogs and certainly writing them.

As I become more savvy to the social media science going on behind the blogs - I take particular note of some of my favorites and all of the social media advertising that sandwiches both sides of the posts. I have to wonder as a marketer, what their intent was in starting their blogs?

For me, my personal blog catalogs the life of my 3-year old and the funny things she says and does - a scrapbook, if you will...since she was born to a ridiculously uncrafty mamma! My professional blog catalogs my life as a marketer - marketing technology for marketing departments across the globe. Both will capture rights of passage, I suppose.... and coming of age or stage.

Who knows...in time, perhaps you'll see my blogs with PPC advertising peppered down the sides - until then, keep reading, keep commenting.....I want to know you're out there! and I'll keep writing.

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Aprimo Marketing Studio - A 3D Introduction and Homepage Flash

by James Gilchrist

Project Definition
The goal of this post is to provide some insight into how the following interactive splash page was built to market our Aprimo Marketing Studio Microsite (sorry non-techical people, but this may bore you to death):

http://www.aprimo.com/marketingstudio/splash/splash.html (a 3D Marketing Studio splash introduction)

Purpose of Marketing Studio Splash Page
The Marketing Studio animation was meant to excite people's interest in our temporary Marketing Studio microsite, which provided plenty of information about our new microsite software. The software includes modules such as Search Engine Management, Commercial Email, Microsites & Landing Pages, Web Analytics, etc. It contains everything a marketing department needs to run web campaigns.

The splash page included animation of a box turning from white to green, opening, and letting our icons, which represent our solution modules, out of the box. Then, text pops up mentioning that we can't wait to show you our solutions. Finally, you would fill out a form, and we would contact you with the password to view our Aprimo Marketing Studio microsite.

Technologies Used

Blender 3D (blender.org) - create Box Animation: Output Targa
Adobe After Effects - import TARGA & animate icons; output FLV
Adobe Flash - used to embed FLV and actionscript was used for the lights in the background

Challenge
The biggest challenge for me, in this case, was learning free 3D software that was brand new to me. Due to the fact that I had never used Blender, it took couple days to build the 3D box animation. The interface is nothing like Autodesk 3D studio Max or Maya, and don't get me started on the materials and shading.

While this was a challenge, the direction I received from our marketing management pointed to 3D animation, so I took initiative to learn enough about the software to create a simple animation. Though the software is the opposite of intuitive, Blender can be used as an excellent marketing tool for sharp, 3D animation with transparency.

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Healthy Marketing

by Donna Holland

One of my family members had surgery this week and has come through it beautifully. She had a wonderful team of medical experts to make this happen.

It made me think about the surgery we often need in our business processes. I hear this in speaking with prospects looking for marketing information technologies and social media applications. They need to eliminate the old and find something that works for them making their marketing efforts healthy and productive.

One lady recently told me they have a complex system of marketing management processes but it doesn't give them the productivity they desperately need. Their current process mires them down, resulting in consumption of time and money. She was excited to know we have marketing software, both on-demand & Marketing SaaS (Software as a Service) that can streamline all of her marketing needs. Now, the hardest decision she has to make is determining which solution best suits her needs!

So, think of Aprimo as your marketing medical team. If your marketing efforts are ailing, I would love to speak with you. We would love to make them healthy.

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Interactive Marketing can Lead to Interpersonal Experiences

by Barbara Kovacs

Ok, so my core compentency is NOT marketing. It's sales. And I have never, ever worked in any other capacity for a marketing professional software company until now. In my opinion marketing has always been behind the car, not the wheel, when it comes to generating quality leads for sales people. Can I get an Amen on that?

My dad had always said that the best way to ensure getting the job done right is doing it yourself and when it comes to finding viable opportunities in the market place I have always depended on....yours truly. However, with the onslaught of new technologies and forms of communication getting more and more fragmented, (text me....google me...find me on facebook...you know all the social media tools out there!) I have had to retool my strategy of finding great leads by adding in the mix one of my old true blue favorites....the phone.

Yes, at Aprimo, we are a fully integrated marketing powerhouse. At the end of the day, the one-on-one relationship over the phone is what often times drives our understanding of what kind of information we need to present and when we need to present it to our prospects, online.

The key to success in the B2B lead/demand generation sphere is knowing who you are trying to reach - meaning that their job title is not necessarily an indicator of what they do and there are many sources to assist you in doing a quick search....which I will go into later. Most importantly, when you reach out to someone via the phone, make your message a quick and succinct touchpoint that gives them a compelling reason to either speak to you then or return your call if you have to leave a voicemail.

The great part about using the phone is that based on the dialog you can quickly collect information that can be used in your CRM to market back to your prospects and most importantly you can gain their permission to stay in touch. By the way, does your company demand it's sales reps to use the CRM? Ours doesn't, and it seems to really affect how we deal with our prospects.

Creating excitement for your website and having people download whitepapers, case studies, podcasts or webinars is great. What further compliments the online experience is the personal interaction that provides you a better understanding of your prospect -through tone and inflection - this affords you insights into their interests relative to your offerings.

So, what do you use to compel your prospects to continue to stay in touch with your organization?
....

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The Future of Mobile Marketing - Text Messaging

by Rob McLaughlin

We are currently in the process of evaluating the features offered in our forthcoming mobile marketing application for our marketing software solution. This process has plunged me into the middle of mobile marketing and the emerging use of SMS within the marketing function. Clearly, SMS has become an important technology for marketing along with other outbound & inbound marketing initiatives.

It appears, as marketers, we are all coming up with clever ways of saying "text XYZ" to short code "1234" and get "ABCD" back. It amazes me that this simple concept is starting to pop-up in so many interesting ways. However, after watching my son deliver his 10th text message while watching a football game, I realized why this will become a major new force in marketing.

It is no surprise to anyone with a teenager that text messaging has become the ubiquitous communication channel for the next generation of consumer. In fact, they hardly know why a phone receives calls at all. For them, they would not be surprised if several "phones" started dropping that silly talking feature soon.

So, if you are a marketer looking to reach this growing population of text savvy consumers, what better way to reach them than to use their preferred channel communication, which has become text messaging.

Clearly, Europe was well ahead of this trend. However, the next generation of consumer in the United States is right with them. The way things are progressing, at this point, I might need to improve upon my current 1 word per 10 minute text performance or I might not be able to make a reservation, get information on a new home, buy a ticket to an event, or ask where the bathroom is in my next restaurant visit.

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Are Interactive Marketers Mixed Breed Mutts?

by Darrin Strain

Not many days pass when I don't ask myself, "Well, how did I get here?" From a newspaper reporter to a media relations flak to an Internet marketing guru, my career path has been a great one. And, my past experiences have been a great prerequisite to my biggest challenge to date: interactive marketing.

Online marketing encompasses so many different marketing-related tactics, an extra large arsenal is required. Interactive marketers are a mixed lot: part engineer, part creative, part writer, part developer, part producer, and the list goes on.

I guess you could say we're mutts of the marketing world. And that's a good thing.

Is it my dog, Jackson, the day he came home from the pound, or an interactive marketer?

Back in the day, before the 'World Wide Web' spawned a whole new vernacular of terms like search engine management, social media, marketing technology, online marketing and Website traffic, I was a cub newspaper reporter on the world-famous Las Vegas strip. I would brave the searing desert heat to find the stories my readers -- or potential customers -- wanted to read. Flash forward nearly 20 years, and not much has changed.

While I now work in air conditioned comfort instead of broiler-like heat, I am reminded on a daily basis that the heat of my competitors can be more intense than any sun-drenched desert. And, to scoop my rivals, I must constantly reinvent how I tell and deliver my only asset, my story.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not saying that journalists and marketers are one in the same. But, journalists, like marketers, are storytellers, and therein lies the connection. How the story is told is the difference.

So, that's how I got here. Whether working the news beat or touting the latest marketing software, interactive marketers -- like reporters -- are out to tell the best story and to tell it first. We have a few more tools to help us get the message across, but at the end of the day, we all just want the world to hear what we have to say.

So, when I ask myself how I got here, I realize, it's the same as it always was.

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A Marketer working in Technology for Marketing

by Kelly Turner

I am new. New to Aprimo. New to the four padded walls I call a cell..oops…cubicle and new to working in technology for marketing. What I am not new to is marketing (& cubicles!)

Being newly induced to the IT industry has provided a fair share of challenges – a language I do not speak (tech talk), Marketing Information Technologies I have yet to fully learn, obstacles I cannot fully comprehend and most certainly a fashion (jean shorts, black socks, sandals) that I will not support.

With those challenges always comes great realization – realization that the IT industry is moving faster than the speed of light and that for being a 12-year seasoned marketer, I was pretty bland and well, dumb – I’ll say it, when it came to knowing about marketing software that would help me do my job. I spent so much of my career fighting uphill marketing battles on ROI, tracking, results – blah, blah, blah and then more recently on SEO and social media. How did it never occur to me that there may be tools out there to help?

Look at me. Harried, single mother, toddler on one hip, blackberry in one hand, iPhone in the other. As a marketer – I want the cutting edge technology to simplify my personal life – Why don’t I want the best technology to aid in my professional life too?

So, yes, I now work in the IT industry as a marketer and can use great, interactive technology in my professional life. Best of both worlds. I will learn the lingo – enough to translate break room conversations. I will grasp the software. I will overcome obstacles and do my fair share of hurdling…but NEVER in jean shorts, black socks and sandals!

How about you? What are your marketing hurdles?

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Hello Interactive Marketing World

by Jeff Baker

Hello World.

If you search for “Hello World” on Google and Bing you get 10,200,000 and 200,000,000 results respectively. And, once Aprimo Marketing Studio publishes this blog post, those numbers will go up by one.   I doubt this post will do much to help me win the organic search for that term but you have to start somewhere, right?

Given my programming background, I thought "Hello World" was a fitting (but cliché) first blog post.  I started coding on my Atari 400, way back when getting the computer to spit out those words the first time was a great achievement.   Getting your desired results on the monachrome monitor required just the right mix of technology, creativity, and persistence. Moving from a program of only PRINT outputs to also include INPUTs opened up a whole new set of program possibilities.

Today's environment in Interactive Marketing has a lot of parallels to those early programming days. Technology provides the tools to help marketers communicate, innovate, and automate. Creativity provides the content to capture and engage the audience. But you need the determination and the capability to effectively put them together.   And, just as the best early computer programs became more interactive with the user, marketing programs must progress from an endless stream of one way communication outputs to an interactive dialog that our prospects and consumers actually desire.

Software languages evolved from a set of basic math and logic instructions into integrated and coordinated subroutines, functions, and libraries. Marketing technology is also evolving from a series of disconnected individual tools and applications. Generic email marketing is the GOTO equivalent for interactive marketing - useful but overused, effecient but not effective. Instead, email must become an integrated component of Interactive Marketing along with other technologies including search and social media and microsites and dialogs and web analytics. Alone the pieces are useful. Together they are powerful. Fully integrated they are game changing.

In future posts I will explore the world of Integrated, Interactive Marketing from many different angles - technology, process, execution, measurement, optimization. Neither I, nor Aprimo have all the answers but we look forward to the discussion and the evolution of Interactive Marketing!

PRINT "Thanks";
PRINT " - Jeff";
END

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