One theme that has been consistent in my conversations with B2B marketers over the past few months is this: Lead scoring is one of the greatest opportunities and challenges when it comes to implementing and tuning their marketing automation processes and systems. Marketers tend to get the basics -- especially when it comes to core ideas such as scoring against target demographics and applying 'BANT' analysis (i.e., budget, authority, needs and timing). But B2B marketers seem to really stumble in taking their scoring and subsequent routing and nurturing to the next level. In fact, in research Silverpop is releasing this week, my colleagues found that 53% of B2B marketers still don't score, and 69% don't nurture (which requires some level of scoring and is a casualty of low scoring rates).

This issue is especially front and center for me, given I'm in the midst of developing my presentation for a lead scoring Webinar I'm giving with the folks at Target Marketing on Thursday. My presentation will be rooted in the basics, but I'm increasingly of the mindset that such a Webinar also needs to cover the 'advanced' issues, too. After all, this seems to be where scoring falls down.

What are these advanced 'lead scoring secrets'?

So while my Webinar will go into more details -- and also ground these 'advanced' topics in context and frameworks -- I thought I'd present some of the working insights I think can really help B2B marketers take their games to the next level ... and find real success with scoring. So here goes:

> Build the concepts of dialogue and momentum into your model: Given an environment in which B2B buyers have more information power than ever, and sales teams are being pulled into the buyer dialogue later and later, a new opportunity has emerged for B2B marketing organizations to be the organizational 'point person' on engaging with, managing and providing continuity in the pre-sale dialogue with buyers. The goal is simple -- nurturing a lead until it is sales ready -- but to do this marketers have to operate like a tenured sales professional, carefully managing the nurturing process in response to the buyer's signals.

"Industry statistics show that up to 40% of leads may make their first purchase after having been in the 'remarketing database' [i.e., nurturing pool] for 18 months or longer," notes David Taber in a recent Computerworld piece. "This is the whole purpose of marketing automation systems ..."

Yet the sales concepts of building a dialogue with a prospect and of understanding when a buyer gains momentum too often are not at the heart of scoring -- especially when there is over-reliance on demographic and BANT data. Moreover, behavioral score components should distinguish between activity that is increasing versus activity that is decreasing.

SiriusDecisions explains in a recent research brief that your scoring must understand "... the 'arc of activity' that buyers tend to use." Combinations of activity that build on each other -- as a consistent 'dialogue' and that demonstrate momentum in propensity to buy -- should increase the score. Similarly, lead scores should 'decay' after periods of inactivity -- demonstrating declining momentum.

> Leverage insights from the communication channel and the nature of the information 'consumed' by the prospect to better assess a buyer's relative maturity: This builds on the previous point and is perhaps one of the most mis-understood of the factors that go into 'great' lead scoring. Research into integrated marketing communication programs and buyers' information search patterns show that different communication channels and types of information are sought at different stages in the buying process. (Note that this pattern will differ by company, product and industry.) Observing this activity can indicate the relative maturity (and momentum) of the buyer in their search process; thus, it should be a key factor in increasing and decreasing a lead's score.

> Make sure your lead score captures insights from both online AND offline activity: This also builds on the previous point and is another area that B2B marketers fail to fully integrate into their scoring methodology. If your score only takes into account online activity, it is not a complete picture. Make sure that event attendance, inbound calls and other offline behaviors that are integral to the buyer's process -- and that also indicate relative maturity and momentum -- are baked into your scoring methodology.

> Expect your scoring model to change: Before you can even build your scoring model, you will have to examine past campaigns and historical data and conduct conversations with both marketing and sales team members. You will need to look for correlations that exist in your core business logic between marketing/sales actions and propensity to buy. You will make initial assumptions about relationships between factors and build initial score models ... and yet your model still won't be right.

"All successful [marketing] processes are ongoing in nature," explains Steve Gershik in a past post on his blog, The Innovative Marketer. "Tweak your programs, tweak your scores, change the metrics you look at to analyze the scores of your leads. Be open and flexible when you get started and you'll find you have a program that your whole team, marketing and sales, buy into."

It is only through constant testing and monitoring that your lead model will mature. But this makes sense. After all, what you are building in the lead score model is the heart of an ongoing set of demand-generation process -- a lead factory -- that requires care and maintenance. Silverpop's Lead Management Workbook adds: "A solid lead-scoring approach not only helps you to rank prospects against each other, but can smooth the lead flow and help you build a more powerful and accountable marketing organization based on rigorous analysis and testing, rather than intuition and educated guesswork."

> Constantly re-assess lead score data: Underlying your changing model is a constantly-changing set of behavioral data from your buyers. Maintaining accurate scores requires constantly re-assessing and updating the data. "Allow scores to be updated with third-party information such as data-appends or data entry by your sales force," suggests the Lead Management Workbook (cited above). "Automatically add new data as it is gathered over time and re-score leads."

> Work on tuning the relative 'elasticity' of variables in your model: Perhaps the most fundamental 'integrity' issue for lead score models -- firmly rooted in the disciplines of economics and of linear regression -- is the idea of relative elasticities. I.e., different elements of your score will have varying degrees of impact on a prospect's 'propensity to buy.' So make sure your scoring model reflects this.

"The actual score doesn't matter," explains Steve Gershik (cited above). "The important thing is that the point value is relative to other activities so in the end, the higher the score, the more actionable the lead is."

SiriusDecisions discussed this issue in a recent brief, "When Good Lead Scoring Models Go Bad." In one section of their brief, they call out the importance of tuning elasticity in the overall weighting of variables in a scoring model:

While it may be tempting to take five variables in an overall scoring model and weight them all equally at 20 percent of a prospect's overall viability, we advise you to resist. Based on your ideal customer profiling (combining this with activity and BANT variables if both are possible/intuitive to include), choose the variables you believe to be most predictive of a prospect's viability and prioritize your weighting there.

What do you think?

While it is not an exact science, lead scoring is critical to successful nurturing and lead management. This requires that as marketers we get under the covers a bit and address some of these 'advanced' issues -- which is what I wanted to do here. I hope that these ideas were helpful. What thoughts/ideas would you add to this list?

Posted by Adam Needles at 6:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Through these special blog postings, our goal is to offer advice and insights from top B2B marketers. If you're not already familiar with her, it is my pleasure to introduce you to Debbie Qaqish, principal, The Pedowitz Group. She has more than 30 years of sales and marketing experience, leading multiple B2B companies to sustained revenue growth and profitability. Enjoy!

1.) Do you think silos still exist between marketing and sales teams?

Absolutely. Every study still shows this gap, and certainly every client we work with still struggles with this chasm. It's evident in the lack of common definition of a lead between sales and marketing. I would estimate that approximately 80 percent of all companies lack this common definition. It's also evident in the way a lead is passed to sales and how that lead is worked--or not worked. Sirius Decisions notes that approximately 70 percent of all leads passed to sales are not worked, and a large majority of those non-worked leads actually go on to make a purchase. Marketing automation and demand generation as tools and processes are finally bringing to the table a way for this alignment to take place.

2.) What strategy have you seen work the best for connecting sales and marketing teams?

As simple as it sounds, it's communication. I was recently talking to Ed Thompson at Brainshark, and we were talking about this exact topic. Here are three best practices we discussed:
1. You should run email campaigns from corporate, but you should also run campaigns specifically for:
a. A major accounts program--what better way to get a sales rep aligned with marketing than to help them prospect what they're responsible for delivering?
b. Territory account reps
2. Develop lead scoring WITH sales
a. Sales knows the questions to ask to qualify. The net of this exercise is you get a great lead-scoring program and because sales helped build it, they feel ownership to help make it work
3. Work with sales to create a common set of lead definitions and ways to pass and handle the lead

3.) What metrics have you seen work best for tracking and measuring the ROI of lead management programs?

How many campaigns you launch and how many opens and click-throughs you get is important. However, what your CEO cares about is how many marketing-qualified leads got passed to sales and what percent converted to opportunities and then to closed business? It's this focus on revenue-generating activities and metrics that's the key to success. We recently published a white paper--"Metrics That Matter" that includes a chart of the most commonly tracked metrics.

4.) If you were going to do only one thing, what part of a B2B lead management program would you implement (demand generation, lead scoring, lead nurturing, ROI measurement)?

You need to include all of these elements to be successful. At the same time, we see demand generation marketers implementing these competencies in phases. What's important is to have this mapped out. Implementing a marketing automation system including tracking and email is often Phase I. Adding lead scoring and CRM integration is often Phase II, and adding lead nurturing is often Phase III. Metrics vary across the phases depending on the capabilities.

Posted by Will Schnabel at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In my previous post, I listed seven key lessons I've learned in preparing for a Webinar. In this post, I'll look at 10 more tips to consider during and after your Webinar presentation.
Lessons Learned: During and after the Webinar

8. Anticipate and address the routine questions. If 500 people register, 200 people will show up for the Webinar, but about half of those will call in 1-15 minutes after you've started. Because so many people show up late, they miss the opening announcements - audio instructions, when you'll send out the presentation afterward, etc.

Have a team member respond directly to these questions. Ask the presenter to remind people occasionally about these basics throughout the Webinar. Also consider inserting a slide a few times throughout the presentation that covers these points.

9. The easiest part is your presentation. Talking to a bunch of slides on a topic you are knowledgeable about is usually the simplest part of your Webinar. Being engaging and exceeding attendee expectations, however, is quite a bit harder. Style and delivery points count.

10. For good or bad, your speaking style is accentuated. When in an in-person conversation, your "ums," "ahs," throat clearings and other audible distractions tend to be less noticeable because there are other senses being used.

On a Webinar, these habits are greatly accentuated because it is just your voice and some slides between you and the attendee. The first step is to just be aware of the things you do with your voice - listen to your recorded Webinars once in awhile, if you can bear it. Step two is to start working to minimize any annoying habits.

Secondly, a monotone voice, with little variance in tone and pitch can be very bothersome to many listeners. If possible, work to use a comforting, TV broadcaster-style voice - but that also incorporates the excitement and story-telling of a baseball announcer.

11. Be flexible during your presentation. You plan to present 35 slides in 30 minutes. It's doable because many are title slides, quick, image-based, etc. You didn't, however, count on the moderator asking three questions during your session, his opening taking a few minutes longer than expected and you adding a couple of long-winded anecdotes you thought of on-the-fly. You or your moderator may also notice a lot of questions or comments coming in on a particular aspect of your presentation.

Be prepared to skip over certain slides that you can come back to in the Q&A. Use the live feedback and your instincts to spend more or less time in certain parts of your presentation.

12. The hardest part is wading through the questions. If you are lucky, you will receive a lot of great questions. The challenge can be wading through all of the questions, trying to find the ones that you understand and think will be relevant to most attendees, all while asking or answering previous questions.

If you are the presenter, make sure you have someone screening the questions for you so you can focus on your answers. Additionally, have a list of seed questions at the ready so you can transition into those out of the gate and/or use them when you don't have a good question at the ready.

13. Ignore the off-topic questions. Doesn't matter what the Webinar topic is. I always get questions about how to find a good email list targeting (fill in the blank segment). Stay on topic and use your seed questions (see above) as necessary.

14. Be careful with humor, comments and tone. Webinar presentations are very different from speaking in front of an audience.

At in-person events, you get a feel for the room, for what kind of humor and style from other speakers the audience appreciates. Audience members can see your facial expressions, hand gestures and body language. These can dramatically affect how audience members react to things you say.

On Webinars, the audience has only one thing to judge you by: your vocal delivery. If in doubt, leave out humor or comments that could be offensive - though you can't foresee every objection. I once compared the email unsubscribe process to divorce and an attendee registered their displeasure with this analogy because they had recently gone through a very unpleasant divorce.

15. You can't please everyone. Audiences will love you and hate you. In the same Webinar, comments will range from "Really great Webinar, Loren!" to "Loren's section was too basic, really disappointing." As they say, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

Ignore the extremes. Focus on the middle. When you receive a relatively high number of negative comments or percentage of less-than-stellar ratings, you clearly did miss the mark. Determine where you went astray.

For example, your content might have been fabulous, but it didn't match up with your Webinar description. This creates missed expectations.

16. Follow up in a timely fashion. On average, 50-60 percent of Webinar registrants will not make the live presentation. Make sure you send out an email within a few days to both attendees/non-attendees with links to the recorded version and PowerPoint or PDF version of the presentation.

17. Continue the conversation. You will likely have many more questions than time to answer them live. Offer to continue to the dialog via Twitter, in your blog or newsletter and incorporate Webinar insights into your lead nurturing program.

I'm sure I've missed many other tips, so if you've learned some great Webinar lessons - either as a presenter or attendee, please share them in the comments section.

Posted by Loren McDonald at 9:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Along with the white paper, the Webinar has become a major B2B content-based lead-generation tool, whether produced by your company or sponsored by a business partner. Dozens of elements help you deliver a great experience for attendees and high ROI for you.

In my Industry Relations role at Silverpop, I've presented or moderated roughly 30 Webinars over the last 18 months and learned a lot about what works and doesn't work with Webinars. I'm also still making mistakes, learning and hopefully improving in many areas.

In Part 1, I'll cover the lessons I've learned about preparing for the Webinar. Part 2 will cover what I've learned during and after the Webinar.

Lessons Learned: Preparation

1. Prepare for the unexpected. I've done Webinars without Internet access, having the wrong slides uploaded and on two hours of sleep. Make sure someone else on your team has the slide deck. Print out your slides. Have a cell phone as backup phone. Create other safety nets.

2. Be flexible with format. While it is great to have a standard approach to your Webinars, being flexible with length (e.g., 30 versus 60 minutes), content, etc., increases attendee satisfaction.

I've discovered that people love shorter 30-minute Webinars, but some subjects require a full hour. Attendees are disappointed if you don't delve deeply enough into those topics that demand it.

3. Manage expectations. I take Webinar feedback very seriously and read every comment. The negative comments tend to be those where the attendee was expecting (or merely wanted) something different from what you presented.

As a result, I'm paying much more attention to managing expectations upfront trying to ensure a good fit between attendees and topic. When possible, include the following in your Webinar description:

a. Duration of Webinar, including Q&A
b. Job function or level targeted
c. Industry(ies) focus (if applicable)
d. Level of content (beginner, intermediate, advanced)

Regardless, I've discovered that most registrants apparently don't read the description very closely. So, make sure your title is not misleading.

4. Target an audience persona. Regardless of your topic and how you positioned it (e.g., "Beginner"), you will have attendees ranging from newbies to people who may know as much or more than you. Try to have a little something for everyone in your presentation, but your main focus should be on a persona of your primary target audience.

5. Cut some slides. Maybe you don't have this problem, but I frequently seem to prepare too many slides. If in doubt, cut the "iffy" slides and move them to after the Q&A slide. That way, you can refer to them during the Q&A if the subject comes up.

6. Fewer bullets, more images and graphics. Attendees want to hear your expert commentary, opinions and insight, not read a bunch of bulleted text on a slide.

Support your verbal points with illustrations: photographs, charts and screenshots. Obviously, some points can only be made with bulleted-type text, but try to keep them to a minimum or spice them up with color, boxes, etc. - using PowerPoint's SmartArt Graphics, for example.

7. Leave the sparkling water behind. The carbonation in sparkling water might help you win a belching contest with college buddies, but choose regular water for your Webinars. I made this mistake only once. (No, I didn't actually belch on the Webinar.)

Part two of this blog series will look at some tips to apply during and after your Webinar presentation.

Posted by Loren McDonald at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My posts over the last few weeks on sales/marketing (mis-) alignment have tended to focus on two areas -- 1.) addressing the seismic shifts in the operating environment facing modern B2B sales and marketing professionals and 2.) exploring ways to find mutual empathy between these two teams. And there is no question that both of these are important considerations.

Yet as I've thought more about this topic and have discussed it with some of my colleagues over the past few weeks, I've shifted some of my thinking. Much of the sales/marketing alignment conversation today seems too inwardly focused. Craig Rosenberg, a.k.a. 'The Funnelholic,' refers to it in a recent blog post as a quest for "... sales and marketing 'glasnost.'" We cite that the buying environment has changed, but we talk too much about the working relationship between sales and marketing.

Isn't the real challenge (and the opportunity) one of better aligning against the evolving needs and processes of the modern B2B buyer?

As marketing is tasked with managing an increasing amount of the dialogue with the buyer, the real issue becomes one of alignment around that dialogue. Re-conceptualizing this issue in these terms shifts one's perspective. Alignment then becomes less about organizational dynamics and more about the continuity of the dialogue with the buyer. And mis-alignment becomes most apparent when there are hiccups in the dialogue when marketing hands off a lead and sales picks it up.

So as marketers, what can we do to improve the continuity of the dialogue with the buyer in our demand generation activities?

I like to think of building continuity in two stages -- first, in initial planning, which I'll focus on in today's post, and second, in implementation and management, which I'll focus on in my next post.

Planning for Continuity of Dialogue with the Buyer

Here are thoughts on three actions we as marketers can take to improve the continuity of dialogue with the buyer ... and in doing so, improve fundamental sales/marketing alignment.

> Analyze the dialogue paths for different buyer segments and use them as the basis for building your nurturing campaigns: Marketing author Akin Arikan, whom I've cited before on this blog, writes in his book Multichannel Marketing: "In order for the [customer] experience to be consistent and relevant, it needs to be born from a dialogue with the customer rather than a monolog. ... [T]he business needs to listen to customers and study their behavior. Otherwise, how could the business come up with relevant responses or treatments and remain consistent with ... interactions?"

I like to think of this combination of listening to customers and of studying their behavior as analyzing the different 'dialogue paths' that potential buyers follow. While every buyer is different, over time there are observable common paths followed by different segments and personas. How did they find your company in the first place? What do they know about your product/service and its category? What questions do they ask? What materials do they leverage in the buying evaluation process? At what point do they transition from online content and e-mails to live dialogue? What information do they need to be armed with before they're ready to discuss a purchase? This is their dialogue path.

The implication is that if you truly understand dialogue paths, you will understand the role different communication channels, marketing assets and sales/marketing interactions play in the buying evaluation process. It will help you develop dynamic marketing automation campaigns that can anticipate and respond to the upstream dialogue, and it will inform downstream dialogue with sales. As a result, both marketing and sales will have a clear idea of the roles they should play in nurturing the buyer dialogue and will be aware of -- and able to maintain -- the continuity of the dialogue that has transpired throughout the entire process. Voila ... alignment.

I also believe that dialogue paths are the right way to think about approaching lead scoring and routing within a marketing automation framework. A lead score fundamentally represents a combination of the demographics and behaviors that qualify a lead for a sales discussion. Dialogue paths, thus, should be the starting point for mapping out the behavioral elements that constitute various levels of leads scores. And lead routing fundamentally focuses on the lead’s condition when it comes into the marketing process and the actions that need to be taken to nurture that lead, improve its score and move it to a sales opportunity. Dialogue paths, thus, help marketers understand the interactions required for nurturing different buyer segments and translate into various routing paths that should be built into a nurturing campaign.

Dialogue paths also will help marketers better assess what other elements need to be integrated into managing buyer dialogue -- such as inbound marketing interactions and requisite brand perception. And dialogue paths highlight the importance of compelling and engaging marketing content. Again, all of this maps back to continuity and -- ultimately -- to sales/marketing alignment.

> Engage sales as you are developing the messaging and voice that will underlie your marketing content: Eventually a B2B buyer winds up in an interaction with a sales team member, discussing a potential purchase. That’s the goal after all. That is why it is critical that as marketers we engage sales as we are developing our messaging and thinking through the 'voice' of our content. Ultimately the core messages and voice that will be engaged by a successful sales team member also must be supported through upstream continuity of the marketing dialogue with the buyer. I think of it as ensuring that the voice of sales is omnipresent ... even though at earlier steps in the buying dialogue that voice cannot be too heavy or intense.

Kate Headen talks about his in a great, recent post on her Savvy B2B Marketing blog:

Early on in the collateral development process, tap a member of the sales team as a reviewer. Invite them to the kick-off meeting, and give them a chance to talk about what they have seen and heard in the trenches. ... [Y]our marketing messages will be stronger and the sales team will be more likely to reach for them -- after all, they helped write them.

> Use two qualifiers for marketing content: Is it substantive, and is it responsive?: Understanding the dialogue path for a given buyer segment and having input from sales into how you will speak with leads is critical, but as marketers we are still faced with a huge task. How do you populate the vast amounts (and iterations) of dynamic and conditional content necessary to support complex, segmented and multi-path lead nurturing campaigns? Delivering marketing programs that revolve around buyer dialogue is no small task.

I think that there are two additional filters that are necessary, which should guide every piece of content developed -- asking whether content is substantive and also whether it is responsive. What does it mean to be substantive: Does the content answer a real question from the buyer? If not, it’s just mindless slogans and catch phrases that do not support the dialogue. And what does it mean to be responsive? Is the content delivered in the right place and at the right time, based on the dialogue path? If not, it will not be absorbed by the buyer.

Brian Carroll, author of Lead Generation for the Complex Sale, commented on effective messaging in a Q&A with BtoB Magazine: "It's about being a resource for that prospect and offering relevant, thought-leading ideas-and not being a pest, and asking over and over, 'Are you ready to buy yet?'"

If marketing content does not support effective dialogue with the buyer, it ultimately will be felt when sales picks up the dialogue. The result will be lower-quality lead flow to sales and dramatically-lower conversion rates. And questioning whether content is substantive and responsive is just common sense -- the same common sense that drives the actions of a successful sales person in his/her dialogue with a hot prospect. So by applying this yardstick, we can further refine our overall sales/marketing alignment.

Today's post should have helped you think through planning for continuity of dialogue with the buyer. The next post will tackle implementing and managing for continuity of dialogue with the buyer. Stay tuned ...

Posted by Adam Needles at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (137)

A newly released study from Return Path examines average inbox placement rate for permissioned, commercial email in the United States and Canada. One of the report's most interesting findings is that reaching business addresses, which are protected by systems like Postini, Symantec and MessageLabs, is even more difficult than top consumer email providers. According to Return Path, the delivery rate for B2B email sent from January 2009 through June 2009 was about 7 percentage points lower than that of consumer email, and the percentage of B2B emails delivered to the junk/bulk email was nearly double that of consumer emails.

At Silverpop, our team consistently monitors B2B deliverability trends to make sure our clients benefit from higher-than average deliverability rates. In addition, clients can help keep their deliverability high by adhering to these three rules:

1) Don't send unexpectedly. Make sure you communicate clearly when and how often prospects and customers who sign up to receive emails from you should expect messages. And don't abuse the privilege by increasing frequency without warning.

2) Make it relevant. Recipients who undervalue your emails are likely to complain and hurt your deliverability, so make sure you create content that's personalized and highly engaging.

3) Keep things clean. Don't use lists that are old or have been built with poorly sourced data. Doing so will cause your messages to get caught in spam traps and will hurt your deliverability.

By following these deliverability tips, you'll help ensure that your carefully crafted B2B marketing messages are reaching prospects and having the desired effect.

Posted by Robert Consoli at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)