Lead Nurturing: Cost or Return?

In the past few months I've written several articles about lead nurturing and lead recycling. We're seeing a contraction across the market, everyone is trying to look for new ways to generate more leads. Lead nurturing is an often overlooked way to increase the ROI on sunk costs from front end lead acquisition. However, while these programs generate additional top-line revenue, they come at a cost. It would be nice to generate a steady ongoing stream of leads from a single investment, but that's not likely. You'll need to invest in systems, technology and resources to ensure your program is efficent. Think of it this way, when you nurture leads your recouping revenue and converting customers that you otherwise wouldn't get. I've seen examples of sales people holding onto leads, companies that have no visibility and quality sales leads that end up collecting dust. What is the cost of that?

How you look at the costs depends alot on your companies overall strategy. In some environments, you can continually generate new leads. However, you'll come to find out that after a certain penetration in the market, you're attracting the same people you've already acquired. If you're on a CPL model, working through affiliates and other web traffic, you could even be paying these groups for LEADS YOU ALREADY OWN. It would be far less costly to nurture that lead to the point of conversion. If you're setup properly, the leads you already own should be closer to purchasing than new leads you'll receive tomorrow. If you nurture the leads you already own, you'll increase the return and it has a residual effect over months and years.

Can you afford to nurture your leads? The question that I ask, is... Can you afford not to? What do you think? Do you have any experience in assessing the ROI of remarketing efforts? I'd love to hear your cases....

Previous post: Lead Nurturing: It's time to go deep

Outsourcing Knowledge: When is the right time?

As marketers and decision makers, we need to find ways to be more efficient. We need to tap into the resources we have within our organizations and find ways to produce results with less...fill in the blank (resources, time, money, people). One of my favorite things to do is produce something really cool without alot of resources.

That leads me to tonights post on outsourcing. We've all witnessed recently as many of our friends and family have been let go from their employer. This has hit home for me, because I have some very close friends and family who have been impacted by down-sizing. I've also had to take part in this process as well on my own team, it was one of the hardest things I've experienced. I've had to fire plenty of people in the past for performance reasons, but it's so difficult when the only reason is budget...

It is what it is, but that leaves many people left in the wake who still need to get the job done. In some cases, people have been asked to pickup the roles of 2 or 3 other people. It's not the same environment after that...

As those left in the wake, or trying to restructure... How can we do more with less? In the past six months, I've been working with a consulting group Couch & Associates who has tackled a few key projects. In addition, they've helped streamline a few other issues as well. We orginally contracted with them last summer to help with an integration project. Our success on that project has lead to additional opportunities between both of our groups. I had the privledge of working with one of their main consultants, Sandeep Singh (aka. Eloqua Ninja) last week at our offices for an onsite training and troubleshooting session.

In our session, I was able to see first hand the benefits of having an expert to handle specific problems and issues with our platform. We were able to quickly handle projects that I would otherwise not be able to complete, or would take me days or weeks to figure out.

Here's the highlights of last Thursday:

• Eloqua Program Builder Training - discussion and application in our install
• Best practice consulting on Eloqua forms, microsites - uncovered inefficencies in our current setup
• Built an A/B testing program that will automatically pre-deploy an A/B test on a campaign before we send our main batch.
• Developed integration between our lead gen / offer database and Eloqua.
• Discussed ways in which we can integrate our frontend landing pages and form submissions using Eloqua microsites.

In addition to all of this, we were still able to get up to Sundance and grab a bite to eat for lunch at the Foundry Grill... :) You think I'd pass on lunch?

In some cases it makes sense to fill your team with experts in specific niches. We need to find ways to do more with less, consulting is a great solution to tight budgets when used appropriately. When we originally signed Couch, I had gotten a quote from another vendor that priced the project at 40 hours and $10,000 (I'm not going to name anyone...:). We ended up signing a retainer block with Couch for 10 hours, but felt it would take much less time. Once we dug into the project, Couch found a way for us to complete the project in less than 4 hours and they did most of the work. The ROI on that? Priceless...

In cases like this where you have an experienced user / marketer, you can really enjoy greater efficiency and productivity with some occasional consulting hours with the help of an expert.

In the next few days, I'll post the results and steps to setting up that A/B split testing program. It's pretty slick and easy to use.

CP

Site Analytics: Google Analytics Vs. Enterprise Platforms

In the past six months, I've enjoyed working on this blog. It's allowed me to focus on some of the things I've learned over the past few years, and network with marketing professionals around the world. In fact, since September I've had traffic from 41 countries and 37 different states across the US.

I've been using several analytics tools to track and log site stats. It's helpful to see where my traffic is coming from, what they're interested in and their habits while on my site. I had started with Google Analytics on my blog and business site, then started testing a more powerful analytics tool for businesses called Active Conversion. It seems to be similar to an Omniture toolset, but easier to use for small businesses like myself. I was amazed at how simple it is to implement the tracking code on my sites, even for someone not as technical like myself.

Google Analytics: MCJ Global Traffic - September 1, 2009 - Present

It's interesting to compare the free Google Analytics tool against other enterprise level products. The Google Analytics tool allows you to see what city, state, country your traffic originates from based on where the visiting IP address is registered. You can see the referring URL, whether it was from Search traffic, or PPC, what pages they visited and even their click pattern on your site.

In comparison, the Active Conversion tool is really in an entirely different class, more in line with enterprise level software such as Omniture's SiteCatalyst. Although, I've never implemented the Omniture toolset, It seems to be in the same class. With Active Conversions analytics tools you can view the owner (company, or ISP) of the IP address, which is important to companies who wish to know what other companies are on their site. In addition, you can build web forms for your site within Active Conversion, plug the code on your site and when someone submits their form, that data is posted into your Active Conversion tool. Whenever that prospect visits your site in the future, you'll know more about them and whether they're in the market for your product or service.

When you visit your "suspects" list, you can view a full list of your site traffic and find new and returning visitors. As you collect more data, you can build profiles and understand their needs more based on the content they've viewed.

Active Conversion - Suspects List

One interesting observation to note. As I was comparing the site stats head-to-head between Google Analytics and Active Conversions tool, I noticed differences in the reporting. I'd see traffic from company IP's like "3M Corporation" - Minnesota showing up on business website through the Active Conversion dashboard, but that traffic was not being reported through Google. There were regular discrepancies in the reporting within the Google Analytics dashboard.

These tools have been around for years, but companies are finally better understanding how to use this information to further nurture and convert prospects into customers. The sales process is flipping, we need to find ways to push customers into the right product or service, instead of pulling them. One of the best ways to get information on your prospects and customers is to study their habits on your website.

Overall, my trial experience with Active Conversion was great. I'm in the process of evaluating whether to complete a full implementation and utilize it for my business site. If you're looking into Site Analytics tools, I'd recommend checking them out.

CP

Interactive Marketing Tools

I've come across this presentation by Eloqua a few times, it's very clever. It was developed by JellyVision, the company behind the "You Don't Know Jack" brand.

The humor and interaction is great, well done... It's a great tool to capture website traffic, and learn more about your prospect based on the path they traveled. I'm assuming they're tracking the path of each prospect and their time on the presentation. Check it out and tell me what you think...

Email Marketing: Reputation Management

If you've been involved in email marketing, you probably understand how important a good reputation can be. I believe it's very similar to a credit history. If you haven't used credit, you likely don't have a history. Once you're able to secure credit, it can take some time to develop a solid credit history. It's much the same with an email reputation. Once established, it provides a pretty good inidicator of what type of mailer you are. If you're a reputable mailer and practice good habits with your customers and prospects, you're email is likely being delivered to the inbox more often than not.

If you're making aggressive choices with your email campaigns and lists, you're likely getting a high volume of complaints, therefore you're probably having a hard time reaching the inbox.

When I began email marketing several years ago, I quickly realized the importance of a good reputation and worked hard to maintain it. I've watched as various tests I've performed have negatively impacted my reputation and inbox delivery. As with any relationships, It can take years to build a good reputation and with one click of a button, send the wrong message, use the wrong list, irritate your customers and destroy it.

If you're using a dedicated IP or in my case, set of IP's. I'd recommend looking up your Sender Score at www.senderscore.org They provide a free tool that allows you to lookup your sender score. It will show detail your mail volume sent, your reputation score and other key information about your email delivery practices. They provide the information free, if you create an account, you can get more detail. It's a lead gen tool for ReturnPath, but handy information.

In addition, I found a great post by a friend and collegue Steven Woods, he specifically mentions his Deliverability Officer, Dennis Dayman who I had the pleasure of meeting at The Eloqua Experience in October. It's a good read, I included it below:

_____________________________________

All You Never Cared to Know About Deliverability
Original Post by Steven Woods

I'm very happy that we have Dennis Dayman on the Eloqua team - a man who lives and breathes email deliverability. That means I don't have to, and to be honest, I'm very much okay with that.

I did have an interesting time the other week though, trying to explain what email deliverability was all about to a not-so-technical audience. There is a lot of highly technical, complex, and fast-evolving pieces of the deliverability equation, but at the end of the day, it comes down to this:

• there are spammers attempting various creative, and evolving, strategies to get their messages into inboxes everwhere
  
• the managers of those inboxes are working to keep spam out and allow legitimate messages in


• if you want your message to be allowed in, you need to make sure it is very obvious that you are the sender of a legitimate message
  

In many ways, this parallels the work of the fine folks who patrol our borders. They employ a variety of techniques and technologies to identify individuals who are not welcome to cross the borders, while allowing legitimate visitors into the country with minimal headache.

Let's look through a few of the approaches that are used.

Your Passport: this is key to your identity, and it is one of the main pieces of information used by the border agents to identify you. In the email world, this is best represented by your IP address. Most of today's deliverability systems use your IP address as the basis of your reputation. Don't share it, any more than you would share your Passport.

Retina Scans: There are more advanced ways of identifying who you are, often involving advanced technology, such as retina scans. Adoption varies, and there's usually a bit of setup and registration you would have to do. In the email world, similarly, there are advanced technologies for identifying who you are, such as DKIM and SPF. Certainly worth doing, however not universally adopted yet.

Criminal Record: Having a clean record is definitely a good thing when you interact with the folks at the border. The same holds true in the email world, one of the key things to look at is an email reputation score that provides the closest thing to a "criminal record" of the IP address you are using. If you are using a partner to manage your emails, be sure to have a look at this.

Police Background Checks: the border guards can obtain a lot of information on a potential visitor by doing a police background check. In the email world, you can run scans and tests of your emails in a similar vein to a background check, flagging anything suspicious or problematic. In the real world a criminal record can be tough to erase, but in the email world, if you see something flagged, there's a good chance you can fix it. Use a Return Path or Pivotal Veracity scan to see what gets flagged before a major mailing, and learn from it.

Visa Stamps: These tell the border guards a lot about where you've been and whether you have been accepted or rejected. Similarly, in the email domain, most major ISPs offer Feedback Loops to indicate whether emails have been rejected, and that there was a complaint. You can then better understand the issue and quickly resolve it. If you're not taking advantage of these, you're missing a key source of information.

The Inside Connection: Okay, I don't claim to have one of these in the border security world, but the world of email deliverability is actually a relatively small world. Knowing who's who, and how the systems operate is very helpful. Being involved with the working groups and commitees forming the policies and legislation gives great insight into how the world of deliverability is continuting to evolve. Having someone like Dennis Dayman around allows us to stay on top of the best approaches both today and tomorrow, so make sure you have someone like Dennis on your team.

Getting your emails delivered is a lot like getting across a border. Know the rules, play by the rules, and keep a clean record. If you have a partner who delivers your emails for you, make sure they also play by the rules.

The speed of implementation

I enjoyed this video, Eben Pagan discusses the speed of implementing new business ideas. In the video a half dozen entrepreneurs discuss business ideas that they've implemented in hours or days... I love hearing examples like this, gives me even more ideas!

Jobs, the economy and market conditions....

This post is outside of my typical realm, but I feel it's an important topic to address. It's sort of a rant, so bear with me. I've been thinking about the economy allot lately, trying to figure out how we got into this mess, and what we need to do to get out of it... I keep coming down to the thought that Americans need to produce more and consume less. If we are going to effectively produce products, we need to export them to the world market, instead of trying to rack up credit cards and debt of other Americans.

We've got to stop pimpin' our wares to other Americans. In the past 20 years we've witnessed a boom of retail nationwide. There's a Walmart and strip mall on every corner, which depend on you and me to come down and purchase goods. Their location was strategically placed to generate the maximum amount of revenue from surrounding people. These locations were based upon population counts, anticipated growth, and household income. These provide jobs and goods which are necessary to our survival for the most part, however how much is too much? Do we need 4, 100,000 square foot Walmarts within a 10 minute drive? If Americans are getting more frugal, what population can support a Walmart supercenter? I'm pretty sure it isn't 4 within a 10 mile radius. More importantly, what happens when people stop spending as much… This is why we’re seeing an implosion in the housing, retail and big-box markets. It may sound like i'm picking on Walmart, but their just the best example. There are thousands of other companies that have grown to prominence on the same principles.

We need to change our reality... We need to produce more and consume less... It's a strategy that won't work as long as every job and company depends on other Americans wallets alone.

How can we produce more, if the market is contracting? We need to go International. The stimulus plan should include strategy to build jobs that export goods and resources to Middle East and other strong economies ... Sure, let's invest in infrastructure and energy for ourselves, but how can we export our technology and resources to draw revenue from outside our country? What about buying American? It won't work; we need to contribute to the global economy, just as they need to contribute to our economy. How can we make our goods more appealing to the international market?

Do we continue throwing money at industries (auto, retail, housing) that are built on a faulty model, a model dependent on overindulgent Americans?

Buy American... Sure, when you can.... but more importantly sell International....

I'm tired of hearing all the politicians running their mouths about the economy and stimulus bills that amount to nothing more than special interests. The fact is that most of them have no idea what their even talking about. They're just taking a stab in the dark, trying to help their friends while spending our money like drunken sailors. We need business leaders to step up and fix these problems quickly. The longer we wait, the bigger the hole our government and politicians are digging for us.

I smell an opportunity... I'm trying to think of 2 or 3 business ideas I can peddle to the foreign market. What do you think?