Marketing Metrics Makeover

marketing metrics
A few weeks ago we discussed marketing metrics that impress your boss: customer acquisition costs, the marketing percentage of customer acquisition costs, length of time to recoup those costs, customer lifetime value, number of customers marketing has acquired, and the number of customers nurtured by marketing. While presenting these metrics to your boss is sure to impress, what happens if the actual numbers are disappointing? Once you have benchmarks in place, give your marketing metrics a makeover by improving them. Here’s how to fix disappointing metrics.

      • Customer Acquisition Costs – Does it cost too much to acquire a new customer? Look at the sales cycle to see if you can shorten or streamline it. Work with the sales team to define the criteria for qualified leads, examine marketing campaigns to identify those that have the highest return on investment, and focus on using higher ROI campaigns to reach the most targeted, qualified prospects.
      • The Marketing Percentage of Customer Acquisition Costs – If the percentage of your marketing budget that goes toward customer acquisition costs has gone up, that’s a signal that it’s time to reevaluate your strategy. Again work with sales to ensure a cohesive approach. Examine conversion rates, look for areas of underperformance, and find ways to qualify leads more efficiently.
      • Length of Time Required to Recoup Customer Acquisition Costs – Does it take an excessive amount of time before customers become profitable? A three-pronged approach can shorten this timeframe. Start by revisiting your pricing structure, possibly requiring higher payments upfront in order to become profitable sooner. Next, maximize the value of each customer by identifying upselling and cross-selling opportunities. Finally, evaluate the nurturing and sales process to find ways to shorten it which reduces acquisition costs in the first place.
      • Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) – This is related to the above, but it also stands alone. Again, you will need to evaluate your sales cycle and acquisition costs in an effort to reduce those. Finding additional opportunities can also increase CLV. In addition, reducing “churn” should also be prioritized. Churn refers to customers who are dissatisfied and leave your business. Evaluate product quality, customer service, renewal processes, and other areas that affect churn and address areas that need improvement. By reducing turnover, you can increase the number of profitable customers and increase CLV as a whole for each segment of customers.
      • Number of Customers Directly Acquired by Marketing – If the number of customers directly acquired by marketing has gone down significantly, reevaluate your lead management process. Are leads being nurtured properly? Are they being given the right information at the right time in the sales and nurturing cycle? While it’s tempting to buy more leads, it’s not helpful if your lead management system isn’t working to move them through the funnel toward a favorable buying decision.
      • Number of Customers Nurtured by Marketing – This metric involves the number of customers that the marketing department has assisted. If this metric goes down, it means that marketing is becoming less involved in the process once a lead has been turned over to sales. It’s smart for sales and marketing to work together to nurture leads, not as separate entities. It may be time to realign sales and marketing to ensure that leads are both generated and nurtured efficiently.

As with most performance measures, these marketing metrics will fluctuate. When the metrics above change suddenly or dramatically, it could be a red flag that needs your attention. Even without dramatic changes, you may want to work on improving each of these metrics to ensure a shorter customer acquisition cycle and a faster time to become profitable.

Internet Marketing: CRM, Marketing Tactics and IT Alignment

Internet marketing and sales strategyInternet marketing continues to evolve, becoming both more viable and more complex. Customer relationship management software (CRM) has become a must due to the complexity. It plays an important role at all stages of the sales funnel. With a solid CRM system in place, your Internet sales and marketing teams can more effectively manage contacts whether they’re in the engage, convert, or nurture stage. Where the sales funnel was once the realm of the sales and marketing team, today’s Internet marketing strategies require a robust CRM solution – and IT involvement.

To add to the complexity of CRM and the Internet sales funnel in general, social media has emerged as a major channel for customer service, tech support, sales, and marketing alike. Integrating social media into your Internet marketing CRM program allows everyone to see the larger picture. For example, is a contact complaining about your service? Is she raving about your products? Has a contact expressed a need that your company can fill? By tapping into these channels, your sales, marketing, customer service, and tech support teams can respond appropriately.

Opinions vary on the best approach to CRM with some Internet marketing experts favoring a single, shared database for both marketing and sales and others preferring separate databases to ensure that leads are managed properly according to where they are in the Internet sales funnel. Other experts advocate using marketing automation software to first clean up the sales funnel data before importing it into CRM software.

Can a single CRM solution handle everything your Internet sales and marketing teams need? The answer varies from company to company. In most cases, sales and marketing need to work with the same data and contacts; however, they tend to interact with that data differently.

Integrated CRM solutions that include marketing automation and email marketing software may be the optimal choice by allowing sales and marketing to access shared data without duplication or conflicts. For example, with an integrated Internet marketing CRM platform, when an email subscriber unsubscribes from an email marketing campaign the contact will be removed from the mailing list and relevant information appended to the contact’s record.

No matter which option makes the most sense for your Internet marketing strategy, one thing is clear: you need IT support. With multiple databases, automation software, and lead sources (such as cold calling, opt-in lists, special events, and social media channels), managing the sales funnel requires software and systems that perform to their fullest potential.

While many Internet marketing platforms are offered as “software as a service” and imply that minimal IT intervention will be required, aligning marketing with IT is essential. While installation, updates, and support tasks may be minimal with cloud-based Internet sales solutions, IT should be involved in selecting the solution to make sure it is compatible with existing systems along with the company’s security and privacy policies. If your CRM solution includes social media information from contacts based in European Union countries, stricter privacy regulations may apply.

By including IT in the Internet sales and CRM conversation, you’ll benefit from a broader perspective that extends beyond the sales funnel and better aligns with the organization’s objectives. In addition, IT professionals tend to have more experience in purchasing software. Thus, they may be better equipped to evaluate the terms and conditions and negotiate the contract.

No matter which CRM solution you use to nurture prospects through the sales funnel, stronger Internet sales require alignment between your Internet marketing, sales, and IT teams.

Website Optimization’s Effect on Offline Marketing Strategies

Website optimization or SEO drives slae sleads to your WebsiteThe importance of website optimization can’t be stressed enough. After all, the website is the heart of eCommerce and it’s where online conversion takes place. In recent years, website optimization has become more sophisticated. Not only is website optimization important online, it can extend offline as well.

According to Marketing Sherpa’s 2012 Website Optimization Benchmark Report, the most important website optimization goals include the following:

  • To increase overall conversion (83%)
  • To learn about consumer behaviors and motivations (64%)
  • To discover the most important wordings and phrases (62%)
  • To determine the most effective page elements (62%)
  • To find leaks in the sales funnel (58%)
  • To build brand awareness (53%)

Over 80 percent of the survey’s respondents agreed that increasing overall conversion was “very important” while 64 percent felt the same about learning about consumer behaviors and motivations. A good website optimization campaign can drive traffic, improve conversions, and provide you with detailed insights about your customers and their behaviors.

All of this learning from website optimization is largely being shared. The report revealed that 70 percent of the surveyed marketers use the lessons they’ve learned from their website optimization efforts to adjust their offline marketing campaigns and other forms of messaging.

With website optimization, marketers have a unique platform that they can use to test messages and responses. As marketers learn more about what works and what doesn’t work through the optimization process, they have the opportunity to use that knowledge in offline marketing.

Based on the Marketing Sherpa’s report, the majority of marketers do so. But what about the other 30 percent? What’s holding them back? It turns out that where a marketer is in the optimization process has an influence on whether or not those online findings will be extended to the offline world. The report revealed that those in the more advanced stages are 57 percent more likely to do so.

No matter where you are in the website optimization process, you may be able to apply what you’ve learned to other areas. For example, if you’ve split tested a landing page and found that your target audience responded favorably to a specific call to action, wouldn’t it make sense to use a similar approach in a print newsletter or some other offline campaign?

Likewise, your analytical tools may reveal interesting trends and insights into your audience. In fact, you may come to learn that your products and services appeal to a completely different demographic than you initially envisioned. What will you do with that information? While tweaking your website and online marketing campaigns to leverage those findings is the obvious choice, have you considered how you might use this information offline?

What if the team that handles inbound marketing isn’t involved in offline marketing? This could be a mistake. This doesn’t mean having your Web marketing team take over offline marketing, but it does suggest that sharing information could be beneficial to your broader marketing strategy.

Website optimization is a complex, constantly evolving process. As you fine-tune your website, test pages, analyze results, and learn more about how your customers and prospects interact with it, it’s smart to get the most mileage out of your efforts as possible. The next time you learn something new about your customers through the website optimization process, consider walking across the hall and sharing your insights with your offline colleagues.

Virtual Spokespersons: How to Choose a Look

When it comes to virtual spokespersons, props, makeup, and wardrobe can make a difference. Most actors are able to play many roles and are comfortable altering their appearance to match. Because of this, try not to rule out actors based on their initial appearance in a demo tape. For example, if you have your heart set on having a virtual spokesperson dressed in medical scrubs, don’t rule out an actor who appears on camera in a business suit. Look for qualities like a friendly smile, approachable look, and pleasant tone of voice and then imagine your favorite actors in suitable attire.

While this is helpful for website owners who know what they want, what if you don’t know? How can you choose the right look for your site? Start by examining the following considerations:

  1. Consider your target audience. Who are you trying to reach? Women? Teens? Senior citizens? Business people? Write down the largest audience segment.
  2. Consider your brand. Describe your brand using three different adjectives. For example, a financial advisor’s adjectives might be traditional, conservative, and authoritative while a personal trainer’s might be athletic, fun, and disciplined.
  3. Consider props. The above two considerations may give you a better idea of the type of virtual spokesperson your site needs such as a traditional, conservative, authoritative woman or an athletic, fun, and disciplined man. Now think about props that could help your virtual spokesperson reinforce what your site is all about. For example, a stethoscope, stopwatch, clipboard, and briefcase each represent different professions.
  4. Consider hairstyle. For women, buns and ponytails create dramatically different impressions. A woman with her hair pulled back into a bun may be a perfect fit for the financial services site. Meanwhile that same woman wearing a ponytail could resonate with the personal trainer’s website.
  5. Consider wardrobe. Finally, consider the wardrobe. From professional attire like business suits, medical scrubs, lab coats, and uniforms to casual wear, athletic clothing, and work clothes, the possibilities are unlimited.

Be careful not to overdo it though. For example, a virtual spokesperson in business attire would likely be more effective on a legal website than one dressed in judicial robes. A young adult in a polo shirt and khakis may look more collegiate than one dressed in a cap and gown. Remember your audience; you want your audience to relate to the virtual spokesperson, not be intimidated by her.

Fortunately, if you’re working with a video production company, you’ll likely work with talented professionals who can help you select the right look for the virtual spokesperson as well as for your website, brand, and audience.

Creating “Evergreen” Video Spokespeople

Adding a video spokesperson to your website requires an investment of time and money. However, once the video has been shot and edited and the video overlay has been set up on your website, your video spokesperson can last for years. If your message doesn’t change drastically, you may not need to update the video spokesperson for years. But, if you don’t think in terms of the future when you shoot, you could end up with a spokes model that looks dated prematurely.

For example, remember when Fedora hats were all the rage back in 2008? A video spokesperson wearing a Fedora would’ve been fashionable back then, but would stick out now as being dated. Currently, “jeggings,” a cross between jeans and leggings, are popular, but will they be a distraction a year or two from now? In addition to clothing and accessories, the video spokesperson’s hairstyle could be problematic in the future if it is trendy now.

Because you want your video spokesperson to last for more than the current season, you’ll need to create an “evergreen” look. The term “evergreen” is commonly used to indicate Web content that is built to withstand the test of time. For instance, an article about the latest football game will be relevant for about a week until the next games are played while an article about the differences between American and European football will be relevant for years to come. Of the two articles, the latter is considered “evergreen.”

Creating an evergreen look for your video spokesperson involves choosing a spokesperson with a timeless overall look or a look that can be transformed to pass the test of time. Work with a video production company that has a wide selection of classic wardrobe options. Choose wardrobes that will look as good tomorrow as they do today and avoid those that are trendy, flashy, or bold. Just as navy blue suits are safe choices for job interviews, solid classics are generally safe for video spokes models.

Another consideration when creating an evergreen video spokesperson for your website involves the script. Avoid catchphrases and buzzwords that are popular today but will likely be short-lived. These will date your video spokesperson as soon as they become clichés or fall out of favor. Soon, these phrases may even be forgotten and their context lost on future visitors. Avoid references that will date your spokesperson as well.

For example, if your script mentions President Obama, it will be obsolete as soon as President Obama is no longer the president. References to future dates are especially problematic as once that date passes, the script is no longer relevant. For example, if your video spokesperson says, “This offer is good until December 2010,” the video will be hopelessly out of date from January 2011 forward. A better choice would be to say, “This offer expires soon” and use other easy-to-change elements on the webpage to indicate the actual expiration date.

Selecting an evergreen wardrobe, hairstyle, and script for the video spokesperson allows you to extend the final video overlay’s life on your website.