5 Lead Scoring Myth Busters

Having researched countless lead scoring programs for various clients, certain patterns tend to appear over and over. A few very lucky clients get it right the first time, but this is extremely rare.

Some clients enable a simple lead scoring program initially, then if it fails to meet the expectation of sales, they leave it on a shelf and abandon the idea. Successful clients actively tweak their scoring program continuously, adapting to changes in their industry, their products, and the shifts in behaviors of their leads.

Myth #1: Lead Scoring Works Immediately

Successful lead scoring programs take time to develop. On average 3-6 months to test, evaluate, tweak, etc, often even longer. It is very common to see either very low scores or very high scores come through when you first fire up the program. This is normal. Go back to sales and refine the scores further, each time getting closer and closer to accurately scoring explicit and implicit criteria. You really need to evaluate it for the entire length of your average sales cycle to fully vet it. So if your average sales cycle is 2 years, be very patient as you diligently continue to refine it.

Myth #2: Lead Scoring is for Everyone

If sales’ only criteria for accepting a lead is if there is breath showing on a mirror, then sales will ignore lead scoring. In fact they will resent any efforts to throttle back non MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads). Some sales reps are desperate for any lead, whether they are qualified or not, so taking the time to develop a scoring program for them is not typically worth the effort. Also if the sales cycle is extremely short, say less than 30 days, it may not be worth it to develop a lead scoring program either.

Myth #3: One Size Fits All

I have clients that have multiple lead scoring programs running simultaneously, one for each product, geo or BU. Keep in mind this took several years to get to this stage and was done only after fully vetting their first successful lead scoring program. When setting up an initial lead scoring program, I recommend scoring on general interest first – Not by Specific BU. The advantages of doing it this way are:

• Vetts the process with Key Players
• Builds Confidence/Buzz
• Gains Momentum
• Build out Specific BUs once Success Achieved

Myth #4: Lead Scoring Generates More Leads

It always surprises me how prevalent this misconception is, especially among sales. It is often the reason sales reps ultimately ignore your lead scoring program. The truth is, just the opposite occurs. Sales actually gets fewer leads; but they tend to be of higher quality and further in the buying cycle. Make sure sales understands that lead scoring does not guarantee a lead has an open PO ready to sign, or have their checkbooks out, it only provides a pecking order of who to call first, second, third, etc. That’s it.

Myth #5: If Sales Looses Confidence in Lead Scoring – Game Over

This almost always happens when the mistake is made to launch an initial lead scoring program to the entire sales organization out of the gate. Sales heard about this cool thing called lead scoring, marketing is anxious to provide immediate value, so the lead scoring program is launched quickly. That’s when the trouble starts. Sound familiar?

If this occurs, don’t give up, but don’t re-launch an edited version to the whole sales team. They are already circumspect and if there are still any edits to be made, then it will be very difficult to get full buy-in moving forward.

Instead work with 1 or 2 sales champions and really get them involved in making the tweaks. Have them evaluate the last 50 closed deals and look for explicit similarities. Are they sharing a specific job role or title? Look for similar behaviors as well. Visits to certain web pages, attendance at specific webinars, etc. If you look, patterns will emerge. Make sure your next generation scoring program is incorporating these.

If you are new to lead scoring or need a Lead Scoring “Do-Over”, consider the following tips, depending on whether you have many leads or few leads:

We Have Many Leads in CRM

• Start with an Inactive Lead Nurturing/Scoring Program
• Pros:
• Converts dead or “junk” leads
• Doesn’t disrupt current lead flow processes
• Cons:
• Takes full sales cycle to provide value
• Leverage nurturing to drive scorable behaviors – don’t just leave it to happenstance

We Have Few Leads in CRM

• Score Everyone Often
• Focus on recency of behavior, rather than frequency of behavior
• Give sales visibility to all scored leads (not just MQLs)
• Build Fast Lane for Ready to Buy Leads
• Work closely with your “sales champion” throughout testing phase
• Leverage nurturing to drive scorable behaviors – don’t just leave it to happenstance

Lead scoring is marketing's gift to sales. It can be an extremely powerful sales enablement tool. But it rarely works correctly out of the box and requires continuous course correction once it does work. Having that expectation helps make the lead scoring journey worth all the trouble for the entire enterprise.

Visit my brand new website and learn more about lead scoring.

Steve Kellogg

-Demand Generation/Marketing Automation Consultant, Astadia

-Eloqua Certified Marketing Automation Best Practices Consultant

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What Happens When Everything is Relevant?

Right now, adopters of marketing automation have a leg-up in that our messages are presumably more relevant than those still incorporating batch & blast messaging. We have the advantage of right time, right message, right person workflows.

But as marketing automation adoption continues to skyrocket, what happens when everyone’s messages are relevant? Now what? Competition for attention becomes even more challenging.

Even now, my inbox is already full of relevant messages. For example, I am a member of at least 20 LinkedIn Marketing Automation groups and continue to receive extremely relevant discussion topics all day long.

So how can you get your marketing email to move to the front of the line?

• Urgency
• Importance

All other things being relevant (excuse the pun), we tend to focus on those messages that are (1) Urgent, then (2) Important.

An email from my bank suspecting fraud on my account is both urgent and important. I would stop everything and take action.

An email reminding me I only have 30 minutes left to register for a popular workshop is urgent and worthy of my immediate attention as well (assuming it is relevant and important).

An email inviting me to a webinar 5 weeks from now may be important but it is not urgent.

Many studies indicate that people wait until the last minute before taking action. I recently helped a client with a webinar registration test in which over 55% of the registrations were submitted within 24 hours of the event, despite the initial invitation and reminder emails being sent 2 weeks prior. Leveraging the last minute is a sure-fire method of getting your message to the top of the list and “forcing” action.

Don’t’ Fake Urgency

You can’t always create urgency when there really isn’t any. Don’t fake it whatever you do. We all hear the radio commercial that makes an offer to the next 20 callers only, that runs every 2 hours.

Making it Important

If you can't make it urgent, try and make it important. I know everything we marketers send out is extremely important (at least in our eyes) but it may not be perceived that way by the recipient (shocking I know). One way to help sell importance is to make it scarce.

You’ve developed an eBook that contains information rarely seen before. Your offer is a complete paradigm shift, a game changer. You’ve figured out a way to put a square peg in a round hole. Make your message important by including scarcity when possible.

If there is no urgency, and your message is not particularly earth-shattering, at least make it convenient. This is one reason video is so successful. It’s easy and requires very little effort. If I’m confronted with 20 relevant messages, I’m definitely responding to the one that requires the least effort to respond to first.

As an early marketing automation adopter you may not need to leverage these tactics now, but you will. Better to leverage them now.

P.S. So what happens when down the road, everything becomes relevant, urgent, important and convenient? I’m not sure what we do. Maybe we put down our devices and pay attention to the person next to us?

Visit my brand new website and learn more about marketing automation

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

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Priceline is Following Me...Literally!

Several months ago I needed to book a hotel in Hollywood, CA near a client. I had never used Priceline before so I’d thought I’d give it a try. They found me a good deal at a hotel “nearby”. Long story short they ended up booking me into a hotel in Century City, which is nowhere near Hollywood.

As soon as I got the confirmation I called them and requested a refund, but despite 30 minutes of wrangling with the “manager” they refused to budge. I ended up paying for 2 hotel rooms that night. The hotel in Century City from Priceline and the hotel in Hollywood that I ended up booking on my own. Lesson learned – I will never use Priceline again. Ever.

Yesterday I needed to book a hotel in Palm Springs, near another client. I went online and did the usual searching, using Kayak, Travelocity, Expedia, etc.

Within 20 minutes I was shocked to receive an email from Priceline.com offering discounts on hotels in Palm Springs on the same days I was planning on being there. How did they know I was looking for a hotel in Palm Springs? How did they know which days I was going to be there?

As a marketing automation and Best Practices consultant I would be the last person to toss up the Big Brother argument for cookie tracking, but wow, this is the first time I’ve ever felt like Big Brother was actually watching me – stalking me almost.

If the email was from a company I would actually consider doing business with I wouldn’t mind, in fact I’d probably appreciate it, but what made this so unsettling is every time I even hear about Priceline it always reminds me of the money I lost.

Cookie Tracking

There has been a lot of discussion lately about cookie tracking as it relates to privacy issues vs. relevance.

In fact, in the EU, there is a new law which goes into effect in May that now requires websites to obtain a user's consent before even being allowed to install a tracking cookie. Yikes.



Summary

Marketing Automation and cookie tracking in particular make it easier to send “hey we just watched you online and boy do we have a deal for you” emails.

As more and more companies test these waters, it will be critical to everyone's success to make sure to also include as part of the process,  confirmation of a good relationship with the target just prior to sending the email. Otherwise we all run the risk of facing the same restrictive legislation the EU is about to face.


Key Takeaway
If the current state of the relationship is monitored, sending the right person the right message at the right time can be extremely effective in fostering a deeper, more personal relationship.

If the relationship is not considered, then it's like the ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend who won't stop following you. They’re stalking.

Visit my brand new website and learn more about data management.

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

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What To Do When Your Webinar Ends in Disaster (A True Story)

After months of planning, preparation, content creation and all the other hard work that goes into creating a compelling webinar, the XYZ company (actual company name witheld) was finally ready to launch their very first webinar event.

The speaker was lined up, the slide presentation was finalized and the webinar vendor selected.

Thanks to some great marketing Best Practices work on our part (sameless Astadia plug :) there were 3 times as many registrations as the company ever expected. The virtual room was packed and everyone was ready to get started. Customary housekeeping announcements were made (be sure to mute your phone, there will be Q&A at the end, etc).

All was going brilliantly until about 10 minutes prior to the end of the webinar when a faint conversation started in the background on the webinar conference phone line. One of the participants forgot to mute their phone and his conversation with one of his employees was getting louder and louder.

The audience soon realized that the conversation he was having was a very personal HR discussion with an employee about their prolonged illness.

"Do you need to take an extended leave of absense?"

"What is your overal prognosis?"

 It was extremely uncomfortable for everyone to have to listen to, even briefly.

Now, normally the moderator would have simply done a "MUTE ALL", however she couldn't because the presenter was calling in remotely on the phone and of course that would have muted him as well.

Since this was their very first webinar the moderator never thought that simply having the presenter dial in as an attendee would be an issue. Obviously a lesson well learned and never repeated.

But it's not what this company didn't do that is the point of this post, it is what they did to recover from this that set them apart.

Despite numerous attempts to get this person's attention and get him to mute his line, it quickly became clear the only solution was to stop the webinar. Since there was only 10 minutes left, it didn't make sense for everyone to have to hang up and redial back in, this time with the presenter able to mute all.

Instead, the moderator apologized profusely, ended the webinar immediately, and made a promise to make it up to everyone.

Here is exactly how the XYZ Company did that:

1. They called each and every attendee and personally apologized for the dissruption
2. They sent out an email with an invitation to a live "encore" presentation to be held within 2 days
3. They automatically entered all attendees into a contest, giving away a new iPad2 at the end of the encore presentation to one lucky winner
4. They also offered a comprehensive, on-site technology cost-audit, no matter where the customer was located - all at no charge

The good-will the XYZ Company generated by their actions as a result of this disaster did more than any webinar content ever could in building a positive lasting impression.

So often we hear about companies who seek to hide or flat out deny obvious product or service glitches, but in this case, the XYZ Company turned what was a total disaster into an incredible opportunity to build both trust and value.

By the end of the encore webinar, many that attended were ready to buy.

Those that didn't buy either complimented the XYZ company to other colleagues or sent complimentary emails to the XYZ Company directly. Some even blogged about the experience, including me.

The original webinar was meant to communicate how great the XYZ company is. But it was the actions they took after the disaster that proved it.

ACTIONS ARE THE BEST CONTENT
Chances are, you may never have to expereience anything like this, but I encourage you to actually embrace disasters if and when they occur.

Social Media is the collection plate of horrible experiences, which is why so many companies are reluctant to jump in. They are afraid of negative comments. But if actions really are the best content, then what a perfect arena to join and actively look for opportunities to build trust, in part by repairing trust in front of others.

Visit my brand new website and learn more about social media marketing.


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

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How Many Invitation Emails Does it Take to Get a Webinar Registration?

To help answer this question, we (Astadia) recently had a chance to reconfirm initial tests we performed several years ago, but with some interesting new results.

We wanted to know:

• How many webinar invitations do people ignore before finally signing up?
• How many webinar invitations will people tolerate receiving before unsubscribing?
• How long or how soon before the webinar do invitation(s) work best in generating registration signups?

Here are the results:

• 2 weeks out = 21 submissions – Subject Line: Register Today
• 1 week out = 55 submissions - Subject Line: There’s Still Time to Register
• 3 days out = 34 submissions-- Subject Line: Last Chance to Register
• 1 day out = 37 submissions -- Subject Line: You Have 24 Hours Left to Register
• Day of Webinar = 46 submissions -- Subject Line: You Have 30 Minutes Left to Register

Key Takeaways:

• 19% of registrants waited until the day before the webinar to register
• 24% of registrants waited until the day of the webinar to register
• 43% in total waited to within 24 hours of the webinar to register
• Adding urgency to the Subject Line increases conversion
• There was no spike in unsubscribes whatsoever throughout the entire invitation process. In fact the unsubscribe rate remained below industry averages.

While these results only reflect what worked best for this particular client, I'd love to hear what metrics you have captured and what timing is working best for you.

NOTE: We were unable to test invitations sent further than 2 weeks out as the webinar content didn't get finalized until then.

Visit my brand new website and learn more about content marketing.

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

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Building a Nurturing Fast Lane

Nurturing programs do a great job of building relationships, from tire kicker all the way to ready to buy leads.

There are those rare leads however that are impatient and are ready to buy sooner, sometimes much sooner. Your nurturing pace is too slow for them and they are ready for contact NOW.

While lead scoring programs monitor and report on these, anyone who indicates that they want contact immediately, should get contact immediately – like in the next 5 minutes. Lead scoring programs are fast, but not that fast!

The Nurturing Fast Lane

it’s surprising how many leads actually take action if you give them the opportunity to request contact immediately, where it makes sense. We all know that just slapping a Contact Me link on your website usually produces nada, but presenting a way for impatient leads to make contact at the end of an engaging asset often yields better results.

Try adding a Contact Me Now link at the end of every asset in your nurturing program. For example, a link at the end of an entertaining video, an informative whitepaper or a relevant case study. Add this fast lane option to the end of each asset you deliver, even if it’s just an email.

It often relieves friction if you give them a choice of how they want to be contacted. Something like this:

Yes I want to learn more:

BTW: This usually also gets you a valid phone number if they choose that option. Expect roughly 75% of responses to want email contact vs. phone contact, but hey, its better than wanting no contact!

Rely on form notifications to get this into the hands of sales immediately. Time is of the essensce. An immediate repsonse is always ideal. Sales love talking with leads who are engaged right now.

If you don’t have a fast lane built into every nurturing touch point, try adding it. I’ve seen results anywhere from 0.5% to 3% response rates! The more interesting, informative, relevant and sometimes entertaining the content, the better the conversion. The story of our lives.

Visit my brand new website and learn more about lead nurturing.

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

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How to Make Supply Chain Management (and your product) Funny

Killer content must be:

• Relevant
• Interesting
• Informative
• Entertaining

Entertaining? Yes, according to the new book "Content Rules" by Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman.

I couldn't agree more.

Think about it, as more and more companies adopt marketing automation, more of the content we all start receiving will be relevant. Geez, when everyone is relevant, now what? Now how do you get their attention?

 
Get ahead of the curve as an early adopter of marketing automation by ensuring your content is interesting, informative AND entertaining.
 
WHERE TO BEGIN?
So question #1 is which content should I focus on making entertaining? The answer is, which content is currently converting the best? (For those who have adopted Revenue Performance Management, which content is producing the most revenue?
 
I took a poll of our own Astadia marketing content and here's what I found.
 

Video outperformed all other types of content by a large margin. In fact the least-watched video still outperformed the best viewed non-video asset by a mile. In addition, we found that:

• Those watching a video watched more than 1 video
• Video links got higher SE results than whitepaper, case study or other asset links

Which of your assets currently work the best? Is it video as well?

So why are videos so popular? I think for two main reasons:

1. They take very little effort to watch (unlike Case Studies or Whitepapers)
2. Smart Phones make it very easy to watch video, and Smart Phone useage is exploding

So how do you make an entertaining video? Here's a perfect example:

• COMPANY: Kinaxis, Inc. A Supply Chain Management Company
• CHALLENGE: Tell potential customers how simple their Supply Chain Management Solution is to implement
• POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS: Write a white paper or a case study.
• FINAL SOLUTION: Create a funny video instead:

https://community.kinaxis.com/docs/DOC-5353

 

 Once you've watched the above video, check out the follow-up video. It's even funnier!

https://community.kinaxis.com/docs/DOC-5415

I would very likely forward these videos to friends and colleagues (just like I'm forwarding to you).

As more and more B2B companies begin to "see the light" and adopt marketing automation, it becomes more important than ever to stand out. Being relevant won't be enough anymore - it's probably not enough now.

I highly recommend reading Content Rules. It's an excellent tactical how-to guide in creating your own killer content.

Visit my brand new website and learn more about content marketing.

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

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