Why Doesn’t Marketing Automation Impact the Business?

June 22, 2012 — Laura Ramos

Photo courtesy of Full Circle CRM and iStock.

Earlier this month, Gartner published its Magic Quadrant for CRM Lead Management.  Naturally, Eloqua and Marketo commanded top spots in the upper right quadrant. But a cluster of really big companies look poised to close in on them from the lower left. So marketing automation – in particular lead management — looks pretty hot. Right?

I’m not so sure.  In this report, I was struck by the second sentence in Gartner’s opening summary, which said:

“Impact on revenue generation is high and satisfaction with vendors is generally strong, but organizational alignment issues continue to reduce potential impact.”

Reduce potential impact.  Ouch.  Not good.

But which organizational alignment issues does Gartner mean?  Inside the vendors studied?  No, I think Gartner is referring to organizational issues between sales and marketing. 

Despite growth in market size, vendor offering sophistication, and customer interest, marketing automation has yet to reach that tipping point where marketing operations (who manages automation tools and directs campaign execution) stands on equal footing to brand, PR, product promotion, collateral development and sponsorships.  Even steadfast marketing automation practitioners still suffer from fundamental concerns about how well their systems pay off – especially when marketing metrics and sales numbers don’t line up. 

I hear many marketing execs ask the following questions, which – to my mind – are symptomatic of deeper problems in the automation world perpetuated by the chronic tension between marketing activity and sales results:

  • Which campaigns actually had the most impact on deals? Which drove the most sales activity and follow up that, in turn, drove more deals?
  • How can I demonstrate Marketing’s contribution and influence on revenue? And show the executive team that money spent in Marketing is more effective at moving the top line than hiring more salespeople?
  • How can we generate more pipeline/opportunity from each campaign?  Where should I invest to do this?
  • Why don’t my reports match what Sales has in its pipeline or forecasts? Why am I always defending Marketing metrics as a result?
  • What really happened to all those leads I generated last year? What percentage went into the pipeline?  Became deals? Are still active? Require more nurturing to re-engage? Why can’t we track sales activity on a per contact basis, instead of opportunity or lead?

These questions, and others like them, speak to the continuing inability to prove and improve Marketing’s contribution to the business.  To use this technology to really get to the facts and levers that move the business — and to stand on equal footing with Sales.

Because of my longstanding interest in demand management - and the people, process and technology issues that arise when marketers undertake automation efforts – I was intrigued when a friend told me about a new business she had started to help answer these questions. As a former CMO in large and small companies, she felt these pains acutely and believes marketing execs need something more to help them understand what’s happening with campaigns, make sure marketing data adds up, drive more revenue, and plan with confidence.

I was also very honored when she asked me to join her company’s advisory board to help her shape its future.  I worked with CEO Bonnie Crater at a company called Stratify (now part of Iron Mountain) in 2000 and 2001, and am pleased to become one of her firm’s advisors.

In future blog posts, I plan to share what I’m learning about marketing automation by working with Bonnie and her company. And shed some light on the best practices that answer the questions that will move automation and operations from the marketing back office into the forefront of the business.

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A Solid Communication Platform? TEDMED Ad Shows How It Works

May 7, 2012 — Laura Ramos

2012 Xerox Corporation – All rights reserved.

As the Xerox mistress of TEDMED last month, I learned a few lessons about how a strong communication platform can help create a distinctive brand voice that delivers a consistent brand message. The Xerox TEDMED 2012 program advertisement (shown here, since it only appeared in print during the conference) had one simple objective: convey our support, in a thoughtful sponsorship message, for the event and its purpose. 

While creating a “proud sponsor of” message may sound easy enough to accomplish, several other communication objectives come into play when deciding exactly how this ad should look and what it should say. The ad also illustrates what a solid communication platform can do to inform a campaign and why communication platforms are an important prerequisite to any marketing program.  A bit of background may be helpful before sharing what I learned from working with the Xerox team and our agency on this ad.

“Ready for Real Business” is what we call the Xerox master brand communication platform. It’s not a tagline, but a platform that tells customers what we do and what we provide – technology and services that help you manage your business functions better so you can focus on what you do best, your core business. It defines the rational or emotional territory that the brand intends to own over time. It forms the foundation for how we act, sound, and look in all internal and external communications. It frames how we do this in a consistent manner while providing the flexibility for each product and field marketing function to accomplish its goals.

While this simplifies the process a bit, to activate the platform you must answer three key questions:

  • What do customers do? What is truly core to their business?
  • How does Xerox help our customers do this?
  • How do our customers benefit as a result?

How well does the TEDMED 2012 ad accomplish this and meet the requirements of the communication platform? Pretty well, I think.  (Special thanks to Jason Bartlett here at Xerox, and the Roberts Communication team, for all their hard work that really hit the mark on this ad.) Here’s how I see it address each of the three key questions:

1) What’s core to the business of healthcare? — “Caring for people is the real business of health care.”
2) How do we help do this? — “…by working behind the scenes to free up resources and simplify the way people work.”
3) How do customers benefit? — “… ensure they have more freedom to deliver the level of care that everyone deserves.” (The last question/answer also supports the key TEDMED theme of exploring how to make the future of health and medicine happen today.)

Through the image and headline, the ad also creates a connection between a diverse audience of practitioners, medical students, entrepreneurs, public officials, educators, researchers, and administrators and Xerox, a company with a serious commitment to the healthcare industry. Rather than stethoscopes and scrubs, we picked an image that is medical but ambiguous — he could be a physician, researcher or other healthcare professional. However, he is someone intent on his activity and serious about what he is doing. Alignment between audience and message was really key here and hard to do when you bring other factors — like art selection with unlimited rights at a reasonable cost — into play. The headline is straightforward in its attempt to connect Xerox to the TEDMED audience by saying “Just like you, we’re here to make things better.”

The key lesson for me is about using language and imagery to evoke an emotional response, and how to do this while getting a message across that fits the parameters of a very specific communication platform — one intent on preserving the integrity of the Xerox brand. I have to confess, I’m an old product marketer. I’m all about the facts and getting straight to the point.  Isn’t that what B2B marketing is all about?

Who needs emotion to do that?

I think the ad demonstrates a beautiful answer to the question. It shows how you can deliver a message (Xerox is proud to sponsor TEDMED with a passionate commitment to the healthcare industry) in a simple, elegant manner that creates a warm, human bond with the reader. It’s a lot for one little ad to accomplish, and it think it does it quite nicely. I also think its a lesson more B2B marketers could learn: how to connect with prospects and buyers in a way that goes beyond jargon and hype to show how you really can help customers improve their business.

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Content That Generates Meaningful Thought Leadership

March 6, 2012 — Laura Ramos

Talk to anyone about marketing automation, demand management, or lead nurturing and the conversation inevitably turns to content. 

Copyright ITSMA 2011

Most marketing operations folks starting down the automation path talk more about their people, change management, and technology implementation woes. But after they get a couple of campaigns under their belt, the challenges of developing a steady stream of relevant, interesting content surface.

Here’s proof.  In the chart here, ITSMA shows that among services marketing teams surveyed in a 2011 study on lead management maturity, Leaders say content creation is the biggest concern they face.  So what does it take to create great content?  Great ideas.  Good marketers express great ideas through thought leadership. 

I think thought leadership is a fuzzy term. Many think thought leadership has to be truly unique and leading to be worthy of publication.  I like Forrester Research’s definition, from my former colleague Jeff Ernst, because it focuses on outcomes.  Jeff says that thought leadership is:

“The process of formulating big ideas and insightful points of view on the issues your buyers face capturing those ideas in multiple content vehicles and sharing the ideas with prospects and customers to enlighten them, engage them in a dialogue, and position your company as a trusted resource.”

At Xerox, I think we work hard to present insightful points of view on industry and the role of managed print, document, IT and business process services in those industries. I don’t think we are leading edge, but our experiences demonstrate that thought leadership is best crafted around three key ares:  your experts, your customers and your take on vertical industry problems (expressed as views shared with recognized industry experts.) 

If you are in the Denver Colorado area, and you want to find out more, please join me for the Colorado chapter of the BMA Keynote Luncheon on Wednesday, March 14, 2012.  I will post the slides from this presentation on my blog afterwards and share a few of the key comments, if you can’t make it.  I’m sure the folks at the BMA will share as well!

To preview a key lesson learned ahead of time, I want to point to Jeff’s research on thought leadership and say that his framework for upgrading your content to thought leading is very useful. He suggests 10 criteria for evaluating your content through a thought-leading lens, including:

  • Relevant – does your content deal with big issues your buyers face?
  • Provocative — does it challenge conventional thinking?
  • Forward-looking – does it anticipate what’s over the horizon?
  • Distinct – is it different than what your competitors, partners, or industry cohorts are saying?
  • Inspiring – does it energize people around this idea or way of thinking?
  • Actionable – does it provide advice on what to do now?
  • Results-driven – can using your ideas produce breakthrough outcomes or change?
  • Conversational – does your tone encourage dialogue and feedback?
  • Credible – how do you show your company can help others get there?
  • Independent – do you avoid making reference to your products and services?

(Source: Forrester Research, June 7, 2011, “Thought Leadership: The Next Wave Of Differentiation In B2B Marketing”)

Indirectly, many of the points Jeff makes are the same criteria we used in Xerox Document Outsourcing Services to determine which experts to feature, what type of content to develop, and which to feature in our campaigns. So it is a very useful and practical tool for assessing your content’s thought leadership acumen.

What challenges have you faced in developing great content?  I hope you will join in the conversation with the BMA and me next week.

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New Xerox TV Ad: As Good As the 1976 Superbowl?

September 9, 2010 — Laura Ramos

Xerox and Ducati Team Up on Print Advertisement

It’s been a long time since I’ve worked at a company large enough to invest in television advertising.  For years, Xerox advertising has been nondescript and unremarkable. You have to go back to the 1976 Superbowl ad to find anything truly memorable.   Until now.

In early September, Xerox launched a new advertising campaign including television, print, outdoor, and multimedia. These new ads reposition Xerox as the market leader of document management AND business process and IT outsourcing, courtesy of the February 2010 ACS acquisition. Using a little subtle humor, the campaign focuses on our customers — which is particulary powerful in business-to-busines marketing — and how we help them solve real business issues.  The campaign also includes an innovative, interactive Web experience. (Click on the pink, “Document Management” link to start.)

My favorite of the group is the commercial featuring the Ducati motorcycle windtunnel test. Xerox has long-sponsored Ducati in the World Superbike Championship, and the partnership has been a good one. I like the ad because it is visually stunning (the bright red motorcycle, the rider’s futuristic equipment, and the thin stream of smoke for testing aerodynamics) yet captures an important, if not a little routine, service Xerox provides for Ducati — user manual translation, global printing, and management.

Take a look and see if you agree: this ad is clever and explains – simply and effectively – that Xerox is now more than just a document printer company.  While you are on Xerox’s YouTube channel, check out the ads for Marriott invoice processing automation, the NY Mets marketing services, and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish battling printing costs as well.  Hope you enjoy!

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Silverpop Sets New Bar for B2B Campaign Design Tools

June 3, 2009 — Laura Ramos

Corporate and field marketers face a lot of challenges. Automation supposedly simplifies their lives. Yet one of the most demanding tasks they face is the design, execution, and management of marketing campaigns using a marketing automation application. 

Whether it be simple email campaigns aimed at attracting registrants for a Webinar, or a more complex, multi-channel affair launching a new product or service, capturing and managing all the steps – and logic rules – required to automate campaign steps can be tedious to build and tricky to debug. At best you end up with a Visio-like process chart covered in a mass of spaghetti links and flows; at worst campaign design becomes a series of impenetrable workflow wizard steps that defy editing and change. A lack of more usable and useful tools is, in my opinion, one of the key issues holding back widespread adoption of marketing automation.

But there is hope on the horizon.

Two days ago, Silverpop announced a new graphical user interface for their campaign design and management software — called Engage B2B (formerly known as Vtrenz) —  that I think could transform the way B2B marketers plan and manage campaigns. Rather than conventional workflow diagramming, Silverpop’s new GUI uses a horizontal storyline metaphor – commonly used in video or TV program editing – to help marketers layout steps in a simple, visual flow.

Silverpop's UI Simplifies B2B Online Campaign Design

Silverpop's UI Simplifies B2B Online Campaign Design

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marketers can combine flows of simple tasks, like “register for an event” to create multi-track, multi-point campaigns that run over several weeks or months and help sort out the most engaged buyers from those merely kicking the tires. Silverpop designed the tool to handle the tasks marketing performs when designing campaigns that take action based on how prospects interact with marketing communications, messages, and offers and move leads through the sales pipeline. Visually, it’s clean without being overly simple.  I like it and I think you will too.

So today, my hat goes off to Bryan Brown and his Engage B2B design team. The new UI will certainly help marketers focus on managing demand, not simply generating it. It makes it easier for marketers to build practices that score leads numerically, route top-scoring leads to sales, nurture contacts not yet ready to buy, and use visual tools to engage with sales.  Practices, in our research, shown to not only improve marketing ROI but demonstrate more clearly marketing are impact on the pipeline.

Engage B2B customers, let me know what you think once you’ve had the chance to test drive the new UI. Would love to hear about your first hand experiences.

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