6 Marketing Automation New Year's Resolutions - #3

Marketing Automation New Year's Resolution #3:
ESTABLISH DATA STANDARDIZATION

There are 4 parts to this:

Step 1: Establish a Standardized Data Set
Collectively establish and agree on a list of standard data fields. What fields do you consistently need to capture? Once you establish your master set of fields, make a Data Dictionary out of it. Convert to pick lists wherever possible – avoid open text fields, since there is no way to consistently score, report or segment on them. Spread the word that this is the Standard Data Set.

Step 2: Enforce the Standardized Data Set at every Acquisition Source
Review every data acquisition source and convert the process to the Standardized Data Set dictionary. Forms, list uploads, you name it.

Step 3: Append Incomplete Data fields
It’s hard to target a marketing campaign to specific Job Functions if the field is only 10% complete. Append those fields that are important for segmentation and/or scoring first. Then focus on filling in the remaining blanks.

Step 4: Build a “Data Washing Machine” to clean existing bad data
Normalize as many fields as possible. Start with all the open text fields you always wanted to leverage for scoring and/or segmentation but couldn’t.

Step 5: Merge and Purge
Clean up your duplicate records and build a process that requires a search for existing records prior to creating new ones.

Step 6: Keep the New Data, Discard the Old Data
Aging plays an important role in overall DB health. According to Eloqua, Lists older than 1 year have a decrease of 25% in open rates and 12% in CTR. Create active and inactive contact groups and treat appropriately.

Updated 5-8-12
Visit my brand new website and learn more about Data Standardization

See all 6 Marketing Automation New Year's Resolutions:

Resolution #1 - Establish Corporate Alignment
Resolution #2 - Establish One View of the Truth
Resolution #3 - Establish Data Standardization
Resolution #4 - Fill in the Content Gaps
Resolution #5 - Tighten the Plumbing
Resolution #6 - Harvest the Unknown Visitor

Steve Kellogg
-Demand Generation/Marketing Automation Consultant, Astadia
-Eloqua Certified Marketing Best Practices Consultant

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6 Marketing Automation New Year's Resolutions - #2

Marketing Automation New Year's Resolution #2:
ALIGN TO ONE VIEW OF THE TRUTH

There are 4 steps to this:

Step 1: Fully Integrate Marketing Automation to CRM
Sales enablement tools are a crucial component of marketing automation. It is marketing's gift to sales in helping them identify not only a pecking order of who to call first, second, third but also to provide key insight into online behaviors that will drive a much more relevant conversation. Getting Lead, Company and Contact data in full 2-way sync between CRM and Eloqua is what keeps the trust and value of these sales enablement tools in place for salespeople. It's what establishes one view of the truth.

Step 2: Set up a Full Lead Funnel Stage Evaluation Process

If you haven't yet fully adopted the Sirius Decisions Funnel model, you should. It opens up some extremely insightful reporting capabilities.

SUSPECT | INQUIRY | MQL | SAL | SQL | CLOSED WON

• How many leads are at each stage of your funnel?
• Is this number growing or shrinking?
• How long have they been at each stage?
• What is the conversion rate to the next stage of the funnel?
• What is is costing you to get these conversions at each stage?

Step 3: Align All Reporting to Support the Goal of the CEO
Tracking your marketing effectiveness at the level described above helps provide tangible metrics to the CEO as proof that their goal is being adopted by both sales and marketing, supported, measured and (hopefully) reached.

Step 4: Evaluate the Overall Health of the Data
As you evaluate the metrics above you will begin to spot weaknesses in effectiveness. Certain target groups might be performing better than others for instance. Conversions from Inquiry to MQL may be lower than expected. It's time to take a hard look at the completeness of your data.

You'll never get out of the Batch and Blast era of marketing without focusing on your data. This is typically a huge problem for most companies. Legacy databases, 3rd party list rentals, no data acquisition standards -- the result: incomplete and unreliable data. It's time to evoke a full data standardization process.

Updated 5-8-12
Visit my brand new website and learn more about Marketing Return on Investment (ROMI)

See all 6 Marketing Automation New Year's Resolutions:

Resolution #1 - Establish Corporate Alignment
Resolution #2 - Establish One View of the Truth
Resolution #3 - Establish Data Standardization
Resolution #4 - Fill in the Content Gaps
Resolution #5 - Tighten the Plumbing
Resolution #6 - Harvest the Unknown Visitor

Steve Kellogg

-Demand Generation/Marketing Automation Consultant, Astadia
-Eloqua Certified Marketing Best Practices Consultant

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6 Marketing Automation New Year's Resolutions - #1

This is typically the time of year that many companies revisit their goals, initiatives and 2011 objectives. So in looking ahead to next year, what marketing automation resolutions/goals should you focus on, and in which order?

While this is often driven by your company's overall business objectives, we do know that tackling specific goals in a specific order can greatly influence your chances for long term success - best in class success in fact.

At some point in your career you were probably told that marketing automation is not an event but a journey. It’s so true.

No matter how badly your company wants to be on the marketing automation autobaun at 120 MPH, there is a ramp-up period. You can't fight the laws of physics. So step one for next year is to get everyone over the fact that it is impossible to achieve every goal/resolution first.

Marketing Automation New Year's Resolution #1:
ALIGN WITH THE GOAL OF YOUR CEO

There are 4 steps to this:

Step 1: Aligning with Your CEO:

It goes without saying that making your CEO look good makes you and your team look good. And since the goal of almost every CEO is growth, make sure everyone on your team is clear about what specific kind of growth the CEO is expecting. Is it revenue growth? Is it growth in profit?

Step 2: Align Sales and Marketing Success Metrics:

If marketing measures its success by growth in new leads but sales is measuring success based on growth in sales revenue, this disconnect will prevent establishing true corporate alignment. Eloqua recently launched RPM - Revenue Performance Management, a brilliant concept that best of breed companies seem to have in common as a methodology. For example, just having sales and marketing aligned to the same measurements of success is a huge step towards best in class performance.

Step 3: Determine contribution to Goal by Sales and Marketing

So if the CEO’s goal is $100m in revenue, the next step is to determine the contribution to goal by both sales and marketing. Who owns what percentage of the goal? Does marketing own 60% and sales 40% for example? Get clear about who contributes what. This prevents any year-end finger pointing concerning who didn’t perform.

Step 4: Define Resulting Targets at Each Lead Funnel Stage

Marketing’s next step is to work the funnel backwards in determining the volume you need at each lead stage to achieve your revenue goal. If marketing’s goal is to generate $60m in revenue then you’ll need to determine the quantity of leads required at the SQL stage, the SAL stage, the MQL stage, the Inquiry stage and the Suspect stage in order to reach the goal. Use historical conversion metrics as your guide. If you don’t have these metrics, Sirius Decisions has benchmark conversion data at each stage you can leverage.

Updated 5-8-12

Visit my brand new website and learn more about marketing metrics and ROMI

See all 6 Marketing Automation New Year's Resolutions:

Resolution #1 - Establish Corporate Alignment
Resolution #2 - Establish One View of the Truth
Resolution #3 - Establish Data Standardization
Resolution #4 - Fill in the Content Gaps
Resolution #5 - Tighten the Plumbing
Resolution #6 - Harvest the Unknown Visitor

Steve Kellogg

-Demand Generation/Marketing Automation Consultant, Astadia

-Eloqua Certified Marketing Best Practices Consultant

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