3 Ways to Jumpstart Marketing and Sales Alignment (MassTLC inspired)

Last week I attended the inaugural MassTLC Demand Gen peer group headed by Christine Nolan of MassTLC and Jonathan Burg of Apperian – it was a vibrant discussion with 35 of the top revenue marketers in the Boston area.

It was striking that with a group of that experience, sales alignment (or lack thereof) was the most common area of frustration shared by many.

We were only able to cover some of the potential remedies in the discussion, so it inspired me to write and share this post – 3 Ways to Jumpstart Marketing and Sales Alignment.

What these three practices have in common is they should help build that alignment by putting marketing on the same side of the table as sales by aligning around common goals.

1.       Build a metrics-based MQL Plan

Also discussed in detail here, you, the demand generation marketer, should work backwards from the revenue forecast and use assumptions around conversion rates to show to both marketing and sales the number of MQLs required to meet the plan.

This accomplishes two things for you:

• It demonstrates to sales that your demand generation / marketing plan is aligned to their sales plan
• It solves another problem expressed by a number of the marketers in the room – which is how do you govern processes such as sales acceptance of marketing leads? By building those assumption into your plan, it gives you a leg to stand on when reviewing numbers with sales management… if the metrics such as sales acceptance rates dip below the plan, it should become clear to sales management that the issue should be addressed. It’s not you, marketing, telling sales there is an issue -- it’s a lack of alignment to the plan which should flag the issue.  

2.       Build marketing programs around the sales reps

This next one is a win-win -- make your marketing programs more effective AND build alignment with the sales team.

Here’s an example and here’s how it works:

• Create “Rep Web Pages” which position each rep as an expert in their field. We demand gen need to remember that -- assuming our products are sold through sales reps -- then we not only need to market our products but also the reps whom prospects need to buy from – because nothing will be bought without a conversation with the rep.
• The pages include content of value to prospects and provocative questions representing a discovery conversation the rep wants to have with the prospect -- these are both credibility builders for the rep.
• The page also links to the their LinkedIn profile with similar messaging around the rep for social validation.
• Email programs both for outbound prospecting and nurturing are emails from the rep (plain text emails with their photo at the bottom), anchored by these rep landing pages aimed to attract the attention of the prospect and move them through the buying process.

The Reps not only should feel good about seeing marketing putting them front and center, but the personalized approach to connect with prospects is a highly effective technique to break through today clutter of information overload. 

Other extensions of this including reps adding this page to all of their email signatures, accompanying emails with calls/voicemails directing prospects to their page and providing intelligence to the reps on who has visited their page to prioritize follow up efforts.

3.       Provide more direction for sales on how to best leverage marketing’s content

In his book “The New Rules of Sales Enablement”, Jeff Ernst of Forrester Research quoted an American Marketing Association stat that 90% of marketing deliverables are not used by sales.

A significant piece of this 90% comes from assets not being packaged and served up with clear direction to sales for how to use them. It’s a pain point for every sales organization and solving that pain point is a great way for marketing to achieve that “same side of the table” status.

I recommend providing both email templates and the related content assets, grouped in categories that are actionable for sales.  The first grouping would be buying stage, then by role, industry and/or topic.

• Prospecting  – assets used to attract attention and establish need
• Discovery – assets used to educate prospects during the discovery phase
• Opportunity – majority of assets for sales use will be during the opportunity phase. An area which marketing can help sales is providing sales with content that reps can provide their primary buyer to share with their buying team – content which help cement the value for the solution for each member of the buying team. Another asset type which sales will appreciate are objection handlers… content that they can share with prospects to address common questions that could otherwise stall out their deals.

So what do you think? Please share other tips and tricks you've found for alignment between marketing and sales.

CEOs and Boards of Directors: Should your marketing team be paid on variable compensation?

Mike Volpe, the CMO of HubSpot, recently published this article entitled “CMO Warning: Don’t Tie Marketing Incentive Compensation to a Metric.” Mike shared six reasons why tying marketing compensation to a metric could have adverse impact on the marketing team and the business.

I shared the article with my Sales Operations colleague who is often championing for metrics-based compensation for marketing, and she asked me “So what do you think?”

When I paused to think about it, what I realized and shared back with her is that for performance-based marketing compensation to have a positive impact, you would need these five things to be in place:

1. Strong Marketing Leadership - to communicate and manage the program
2. A clearly documented & agreed to MQL Definition with sales
3. MQL goals aligned to the business plan, based on revenue targets, forecasted win rate & forecasted MQL-to-Opportunity conversion rate – I have discussed a planning process for this here
4. A plan for how the MQL numbers will be attained – I have discussed building a bottoms-up MQL plan here
5. Closed loop reporting visibility to measure effectiveness of each vs. goal – in this Aberdeen CMO Essentials article I discussed how to do this with six essentials to setting up a closed loop marketing system.

Now here’s the rub - the marketing organization that has these five components in place should be set up to meet and exceed their target numbers, so the performance based conversation should be seen as a massive positive (not a negative) provided that like Sales there is no cap around the upside marketing can attain based on their performance. So it shouldn’t be seen (by either Marketing or the Business) as attaining a % of your bonus based on meeting MQL objectives, it should be seen as earning a % of the revenue growth driven through marketing’s efforts to meet and exceed the revenue growth plan.

And for those organizations that don’t have the five aforementioned points, any attempts at performance based compensation will surely lead to conflict and negative ramifications like those detailed by Mike Volpe.

So for marketing management, whether or not compensation is tied to specific MQL metrics, having an approach like it is, will help ensure the process and systems are in place to best ensure success.  

And the best case scenario for boards of directors, executive teams and marketing teams alike – and the whole business for that matter –is that marketing drives the pipeline at the pace required for the target business growth (and beyond) and is rewarded for doing so in line with the performance.

Building a bottoms-up MQL Plan

Moneyball Marketers want to take the guesswork out of demand generation. The best way to do this is building a bottoms-up MQL plan to reach and exceed MQL targets. Ideally the plan targets 10-20% lift vs. the MQL target number established in the revenue team’s planning process.

These are metrics you’ll want to benchmark and then establish targets for and monitor.

Website – Recommend approaching traffic measurement as an integrated approach incorporating Digital Marketing, PR & Social resources.

• Organic Search Traffic
• Organic Search Conversion Rate
• Referral Traffic
• Referral Traffic Conversion Rate
• Direct Traffic
• Direct Traffic Conversion Rate

Paid Search – Ensure you are looking at paid search segmented by these four areas as they all behave differently and investment and optimization decisions should be varied for each.

• Branded Search
• Non Branded Search
• Retargeting Ads
• Display Ads

Programs

• Net New Program MQIs
• Same-Month Conversion Rate (e.g. from a ‘Burst Nurture’) – this will tell us when we do outreach what % of prospects are ‘ready for sales’, I typically see this as a range between 2-10%

Nurturing

• Active Nurture Database
• Monthly Conversion Rate – This is where lead nurturing and teleprospecting to the database pays-off, as it helps bring yield from past marketing programs that helped grow the activity database but leads were not yet ready to engage.  
• ** Note I would include recycling of closed/lost opportunities in this active database although it also can be split out separately

Outbound Calling

• Contacts per month
• Conversion Rate

The bottoms up plan help in multiple ways:

1. Educate outside the marketing team to various components of the plan and move away from all “all or nothing” measurement – Exec Teams tend to ask questions like “are we hitting the MQL numbers?”… this allows for education to show which areas are growing faster than expected or slower than expected.
2. Which leads to the second benefit, as it will help guide investment decisions going forward, which is top of mind to both the marketing and exec team. Are there areas growing well whose growth can be accelerated with investment? Are there areas underperforming who require investment to improve and mitigate risk?
3. Help hold various contributors to the marketing programs accountable – often outside agencies are involved and this allows them to see how they fit in the plan.

And last but not least  -- having a plan greatly increases the chances that you’ll  hit the plan!

Answering the question, “How many MQLs do we need?”

A data driven marketing plan needs to start by answering the question, “How many MQLs do we need?”

Although it can be calculated with straightforward arithmetic, ambiguity around some of the details has thwarted many a marketing team, so let’s walk through it.

Here’s the assumptions that you’ll need – for each product line x country or geographic region.

• Revenue Target – If it’s a high growth business, you could calculate each month with the appropriate # of leading months based on the average sales cycle. Alternatively if you are planning this annually you could take the monthly average over a 12-month plan.
• Makeup of Business By – Here’s where this can either get complex or stay simple. Marketing and Sales will want to agree where the source of business is expected to come from these sources, or all that apply to your go-to-market strategy:
• Net New Customers (Inbound / Marketing Programs)
• Net New Customers (Outbound) …. Worth splitting out for two reasons – conversion rates and deal size will likely vary, and the responsibility for generating the business will likely vary vs. Inbound/Marketing Programs.
• Existing Customers
• Cross Sell (e.g. from other product lines)
• Partner Driven Deals

For each of the above you will want to then have these assumptions:

• Average order value (based on how the above number split this will then allow you to calculate # of wins you need over the time frame)
• Win Rate (this will then allow you to calculate # of opportunities you need)
• MQL-to-Opportunity conversion rate (this will then allow  you to calculate the number of MQLs)

The next step is then taking your MQL target and building a bottoms-up MQL plan.

Marketo’s Latest & Greatest - a Tale of Two Products a.k.a. Some lead and some follow

At the August 12, 2014 Boston Marketo User Group (BMUG) meeting, Marketo representatives shared two areas of their latest product development – Real-Time Personalization (RTP) and Marketo SEO. 

Leaving the session, I was struck by the stark contrast between the two:

• How they fit into Marketo’s DNA
• Their origin & motivation (my guess)
• Their positioning of Marketo as a leader or follower within the category

Product Functionality #1 - Real Time Personalization (in the “Lead” Category)

Marketo’s Real-Time Personalization came across as THE natural extension to everything we have seen from Marketo so far. Take Marketo’s ability to capture user specific data and deliver relevant content, and evolve that from email nurturing streams to contextual messaging during a website visit.

I also envision this evolving even more in the future to incorporate personalized ad retargeting and social marketing, either via further Marketo product development or partnering or purchasing someone like Demandbase, ReachForce or Bizo (although not Bizo themselves because they were just purchased by LinkedIn).

These are just two of the use cases that seem possible (disclaimer: I am concluding this from a 45-minute large projector demo standing in the back of a poorly ventilated second floor of Papa Razzi, not from actually using the product).

Greatly improved targeting of anonymous traffic – The strongest broad use case for anonymous traffic initially is industry-based targeting. Marketo identifies the anonymous visitor’s company based on IP lookup and categorizes them by vertical, so page content can be tailored by vertical.  Banner messaging, case studies, content and calls to action can be tailored by vertical, without asking for anything from the site visitor. This relevant content should lead to increased engagement (lower bounce rates), deeper site visits (assuming the content to support it) and higher conversion rates.

Tailoring of content for identified users – For any identified traffic (you can become identified based on filling out a form or -- don’t forget, Marketo users -- clicking an email from Marketo), whereby a cookie ties that visitor to a lead record.  Making this connection means marketers can now tailor web content based on any information they have captured around the visitor. Some ideas that come to mind here which can be made possible based on ‘tagging’ users based on their content consumption from previous program interactions:

• Tagging users based on Key Topics /Issues, so banner messaging can be tailored to solutions to those issues
• Tagging users based on Buying Stage, so content offers can be tailored by stage (offer an Educational asset to Early Stage; a Solution based asset to Middle Stage; and a Trial Download offer to Late Stage)
• Categorizing role data and tailoring content by role

We could be gone from the days of rotating five banner messages to see which ones is relevant – as now we already know the primary topic of interest of the site visitor.  And gone are the days of guessing which call to action is right, as it can be tied to their stage based on past behavior.

The excitement in the room was palatable as the Marketo team walked us through these features. The story they told as they presented flowed naturally, and for me it seemed that this product development strategy HAD to be driven straight from Marketo founders Phil Fernandez and Jon Miller. Not only is it a natural extension of everything Marketo has done to date, it matches concepts that Epiphany (Phil and Jon’s previous company) brought to market in the late 1990s when Web Personalization was first introduced.

The difference between what Marketo has now, and the Epiphany pre-Millennial engine is that this Marketo web personalization product can be run by the masses of marketers.  Once tracking code and content deployment code are installed on the website, then the personalization rules can be managed via a user friendly rules based interface that Marketo administrators are used to.

I really like how Marketo is NOT trying to place in the CMS market here, and rather presenting their content targeting more like embed code that marketers use in appropriate sections of the website for messaging, content offers and calls to action.

This has leadership written all over it and I see this extending into retargeting, social marketing and more.

Product Functionality #2 – Marketo SEO (in the “Follow” Category)

Whereas the RTE discussion was vibrant and natural, as the presentation shifted into the SEO topic, the “story” became forced. Should the Marketo folks be educating around SEO vs. SEM? How should they be advising customers to deal with issues like backlinks that are oh-so-important but oh-so-critical to handle correctly? Is this SEO tool to replace other SEO tools or is this an SMB starter kit? A good proof point of the Marketo approach towards this is one of the reps commented “This may be not be for you if you’re using tools like CloudEdge.”  Um, ya mean BrightEdge?  Let's just show it didn't show much understanding of the market they are playing in.

While the RTE presentation told an integrated story, this SEO walkthrough felt disjointed, a periphery tool to Marketo’s core capabilities. Do keywords have a place on Marketo landing pages? I suppose, but very low in priority since we know that the SEO value of sub-domains that Marketo landing pages usually reside on is very limited vs. core website content.

So why did the Marketo build this?  Here’s my guess:

Whereas RTE is driven from the founders and company DNA, Marketo SEO is driven by request from the sales organization.  “We need that checkbox in the features comparison”. They don’t want to show up with a blank in a column where HubSpot has a solid checkmark not to mention owning the concept of Inbound Marketing, and as the two lone marketing automation soloists continue on a Purple vs. Orange collision course, Marketo management wants all i’s dotted and t’s crossed.

So I do get it, it’s just that the contrast struck me hard. One Marketing Automation Platform, 2 Hours of Demos, 2 Product Feature Sets – 1 a strategic platform development, and the other a “me-too” tool.

And whereas I get why Marketo built the SEO tools, especially with INBOUND 2014 around the corner, I just wonder how much investment went into it and could that have been better spent on leadership and not a “me-too” product checkbox.

[Downloadable Tool] Planning and Measuring the Capacity of your Teleprospecting Program

I created this Teleprospecting Capacity Model to help manage a teleprospecting program in four ways:

#1 – Setting daily call targets for the teleprospectors – The model shows the impact that the daily number of calls has on the ability to meet targets, and it sets a clear requirement with indication to the Teleprospecting resources of why driving that number up is important.

#2 – Defining the target number of leads as input to the program – Likewise it provides clarity to the demand generation manager on exactly how many leads per time period the model supports. So programs can be tailored accordingly.

#3 – Creating a framework to define the optimal call treatment – The teleprospecting manager can adjust the number of calls and the frequency of the calls and see what the model will support.

#4 – Create a clear delineation on when additional teleprospecting resources will be required – As assumptions are met, there is a clear distinction where additional leads should drive the requirement for the addition of a new rep.

You can download the Teleprospecting Capacity Model as an Excel spreadsheet. 

There are six inputs to the model:

1. Daily call capacity
2. Number of leads (MQIs) passed to reach rep per week
3. Number of calls made per week to each lead –“1” means one call per week; “2” means two calls per week and “0.5” means a call every other week
4. Number of calls in calling program – how many calls does each prospect receive as part of the program
5. Average duration through the program before dispositioned (e.g. moved to qualified, nurture or disqualified) – as a percentage
6. MQL Targets

The output of the model is two-fold:

• Coverage – How many calls per week is the rep forecasted to be above/below the number of calls required from the model
• Required Conversion Rate – The required conversion rate will tell you how many MQIs need to be converted per MQL per month. MQI-to-MQL conversion rates typically range from 2-10% so you want to see where you fare on that spectrum.

In addition to tracking this model over time, the specific performance reports to accompany this are:

• Each week – looking at the number of leads that came in, and the total number of leads with teleprospecting; and the number of calls I the week and the % of leads called.
• Each month – looking at the # of leads that came in, and of those leads how many turned to MQLs, Nurture, DQ or as still in progress – along with conversion rates for each. This allows you to measure both the effectiveness of the program over time as well as the quality of leads pushed month to month.

I hope you find value out of this and please share any feedback below.

Teleprospecting example of short-circuiting the RFP aka “It’s fun when something plays out just as you drew it in the huddle”

When a basketball coach draws up a play in the closing seconds of a game, and then watches his team execute the play just as he drew it in the huddle, that’s gotta be an exciting moment.

I had my business example of this occur recently, when a prospect’s buyer journey played out “just as I drew it in the huddle”.

As part of our teleprospecting strategy, one of our objectives is to “short circuit the RFP.” We want our content to help us get out in front of the buying process – knowing that today buyers are on average 70% of the way through their buying process when they engage with a sales rep. To do this we position the teleprospecting team as leading a set of expert resources who help customers get educated on issues and get best prepared for their projects.

An RFP (Request for Proposal) is a means of procuring services where the prospect reaches out to multiple vendors for bids – which leads to price discounts, procurement negotiation, delayed processes and frankly is usually inefficient for both the customer and the vendors. To avoid this outcome, the goal of the teleprospecting program is that our educational materials build such credibility with the prospect that they see no value in an RFP and want to immediately move to working with our company and leveraging our products/services.

And on this day, the scenario played out that way.

After a program of nurturing emails, anchored by educational content, our teleprospecting rep received the below email back to her. I’ve abridged it and changes names to “protect the innocent.”

From: Kenny Lightyear (Kenny@InsuranceCo.com)
Sent: Thursday, February 27, 2014 6:38 AM
Subject: Information Advocate
 
Hi Michelle,
 
Thanks for your numerous messages and patience – sorry it took so long to get back to you.
 
…. He goes on to introduce himself and explain that they are a new company that recently split off from a larger organization….

One component that will be critical for us will be an XYZ solution.

At some point in the near future, we’ll be sending out a forma RFP to your company and others. However, I would like to take up your offer to talk about XYZ solutions is general. This isn’t an area that I have much experience in. 
 
The best time for me is next Wednesday, any time after noon EST. If that doesn’t work, suggest some other times and I will do my best to accommodate. 
 
Thanks!
Kenny Lightyear

What was amazing about this email message:

• Having never spoke to Michelle before or worked with our company, he started off the message by thanking her for her patience and numerous message – it shows the approach and content of the messages were valuable as he perceived them as positive touches, and not disruptive.
• He then apologized for the delay in getting back to her – prospective buyers are increasingly busy, and a lack of response does not necessarily mean a lack of interest – teleprospectors and salespeople need to remember this!
• He states a need which aligns to our products, and acknowledges that the path they were headed on is the RFP

After a conversation, he agreed to take a meeting with a salesperson – positioned as a specialist.  This occurred one week after his initial email was sent, on 3/6. Key highlights from that conversation:

• He stated a project was likely going to occur in late Q2
• He detailed his business and technical requirements, which aligned to our product
• He stated this time that he may issue an RFP, or he may skip it, “not sure”

Fast forward less than one month – this Insurance company became a customer by the first week in April, for a near six figure deal (which is 4x the average order value).

We did in fact, short circuit the RFP.  We went from “we are going to do an RFP” to “we may be doing an RFP” to “No RFP, we’re going with you guys.”

Call it “content driven, teleprospecting enabled buyer acceleration.” Just like we drew it up in the huddle.

Top 43 Lessons Learned from my first year as Director of Marketing

Below is a slightly edited version of an article I wrote at the one-year anniversary of Director of Marketing at Ipswitch File Transfer, sharing the top 43 lessons (tongue in cheek) that I learned. Re-reading the list, most of it can be universally applied.

1. It’s not a strategy if it hasn’t been written down
2. It’s not a program if it hasn’t been communicated to sales
3. The content  doesn’t exist if it’s not in the content inventory
4. With an inventory number (which means it can be easily updated when it changes)
5. When presenting to the executive team, don’t tell a long story and summarize it at the end
6. Start with your conclusions or key takeaways, single slide
7. Then have the story to back it up & go deeper, as necessary
8. Make sure your vendors & agencies get this too
9. There’s power in data and best practices
10. And we have to leverage it
11. “I thinks” typically get won by the most senior person
12. So use data
13. And third party, best practice insight
14. Get the VP of Marketing involved early in the process
15. Talk to Sales. A lot.
16. And talk to our Customers. Even more.
17. If you are asked a question, answer the question first.
18. Then get into the details
19. We deliver on our commitments
20. And if a committed date is in jeopardy, we communicate it early
21. So we can do something about it
22. If the projected start date has passed and you haven’t started it, that’s probably an issue
23. Every project need a project manager
24. Project managers send out meeting agendas ahead of time
25. And afterwards recap the meeting – what’s been resolved, what’s open, next steps
26. As part of a project make sure you define how you are going to measure it
27. And who needs to approve it
28. Don’t schedule a review meeting if you aren’t ready for it
29. That can get create a lot of stress 
30. Stop the Madness
31. That means we’ve got a lot we want to do, but we need to prioritize based on impact
32. And first get done the things that will move the needle
33. Fill your Boat
34. That means don’t feel you need to solve the difficult problems on your own
35. Give yourself enough time
36. And assemble the right team together
37. Empathy is a really important skill
38. That helps you put yourself in the head of a prospect as they go through their buying process
39. It also helps you know where your colleagues are coming from when they give you feedback
40. Always ask “what about International?”
41. And “what about Channels”?
42. Our website is our most important marketing asset
43. And last but not least:  We have assembled a killer, veteran team over the past year. We are gelling as a group every single day. We are starting to finish each other’s sentences. One of the reasons I took this job was to become part of an outstanding marketing team leading the way forward, and we have created that team. We are well suited to learn from each other, and leverage each other’s strengths in driving the growth of our company and brand. I look forward to a lot of good times ahead together.

Seven Reasons I Love Moneyball Marketing

In the first two posts in this space, I introduced and then defined the term Moneyball Marketing.

You know what the best thing about it is? – it’s a ton of fun. And I love it.

It really makes a difference to do something you love.  In fact, whenever I interview a prospective team member or get introduced to a new team member, one of the questions I ask is “Why do you love marketing?”.

So what’s my answer?  There are many, but here’s Seven Reasons that I Love Moneyball Marketing:

(1) It works “all sides of the brain”

In school I always  had varied interests, and initially I had a hard time choosing “what I wanted to do in life.” Moneyball Marketing requires equal parts analytics, process, people management, information architecture, persuasion and creativity.

(2) You’re truly building something

I’ve heard the term Revenue Architect, and I like it. Software developers are often fulfilled by the act of coding something elegant and effective. Similarly systematic, marketing driven revenue growth requires the build-out of integrated teams, systems and processes. Processes that need to be created and refined include mapping the buyer journey and connecting nurturing programs to it; process for content production at scale; process for program development, integrated across marketing channels and regions; process for tracking the impact of marketing investments across all forms of media; and many more.

I find something fulfilling about the 'architecture' element of revenue architecture, designing something and then seeing how it works out in practice, and then evolving it further.

(3) It requires true teamwork

Revenue growth is a team sport. Four examples of the teamwork required on a daily basis for revenue growth to be operating effectively:

• Product Marketing and Marketing Programs - to maximize effectiveness of programs leveraging the right strategy and the right content
• Marketing Programs, Digital Marketing and PR/Social - creating integrated, cross-channel programs
• Marketing and Sales - ensuring alignment through the generation and leads and creation of opportunities
• Marketing and IT - ensuring the systems are in place to support closed loop marketing

(4) It’s okay to fail

This may be my favorite. Baseball hitters have a job where if they fail (make an out) 7 times out of 10, that is considered excellent performance as it translates to a .300 batting average.

In Revenue Growth Marketing, a significant part of programs analysis is to identify what isn’t working… and either drop it or fix it. Especially in the first year or working in a new marketing organization, finding out what doesn’t work is just as valuable as finding out what does work.

And we can extend the baseball adage to marketing and saying if you’re not failing at least half the time, then you’re not doing your job. Why? A/B testing is a required component to revenue growth marketing, to ensure you are evolving your understanding of what works best and have empirical data to back it up. If you are A/B testing, then half of what you do is going to ‘fail’, and that’s okay.

On that note, it’s vital to foster a culture amongst the revenue growth marketing team which says that it’s okay to fail, and in fact failure is needed. Encourage teams to fail fast, and to share the failures, and the resulting learnings, with their colleagues.

(5) It’s constantly evolving

There are new companies and technologies emerging every day. There are new techniques and best practices. Of last for me SEO has been a fun area to learn about the various perspectives and point of view, and then formulate a SEO plan that involves the creation of effective web content, the management of effective website hygiene, the development of influencer relationships to drive the seeding of content and the management of best practices around inbound links. There's always something new to learn, someone new to learn form and something to do better. 

(6) It involves helping people - meeting the needs of customers 

Around 2003 I was traveling back to New York from a Procter & Gamble pitch at Targetbase in Dallas with Matt Seiler, then an EVP at Omnciom Group and now Global CEO of IPG Mediabrands. I remember Matt, who had at that point recently had his third child, talking to me about how he explains to his kids what he does, as an advertising executive. I remember only partially understanding what he was talking about, or why he even cared to answer that question. And it was a hard question to answer, especially at that point when looking at it from the lens of an Advertiser, how do you explain to children the benefit of Advertising?

So flash forward 11 years and now I’m the father of three and I find the B2B marketer has a much clearer path to explaining the value they deliver – our job is to help people. Through the content we create, through the programs we develop, we are there to help people do their jobs better and more easily. And that to me adds an element to the job that I couldn’t have made as clear a case for in a 2003 ad pitch.  (PS - Matt is and was brilliant, and he could make the case however!)

(7) You can celebrate along the way

The beauty of measurement is we can monitor the moving of the needle along the way.  Whether it’s something we learn from an A/B test, or an improved conversion rate from a specific web channel or marketing program, or the roll out of a new activity under development… there is a lot to celebrate along the way. Lots of little victories that can boost the team and personal morale, and lead to much bigger victories down the road.

Defining Moneyball Marketing

In this blog's inaugural post, I introduced the term Moneyball Marketing. I now want to take a few minutes to define it.

The definition will relate closely to the Demand Generation function within marketing so I will start there. I was recently asked by a colleague, "What's the difference between  Demand Generation and Lead Generation?" The difference is stark. To answer I explained that lead generation implies a myopic, top-of-the-funnel activity, while demand generation goes both much broader and deeper – if you think of business as having Supply and Demand, then the Demand side of the business encompasses all possible avenues for the creation of new revenue and a “lead” is just one piece of the process for one of these avenues.

Demand Generation also includes the programs to nurture those leads; the systems that define the qualification of the lead as marketing qualified, the programs that enable sales to be most effective with turning that lead to an opportunity, and that opportunity to a win; the customer marketing programs to nurture and expand that customer relationship over time; as well as other avenues to generate incremental business including additional channels, referral sources or influencers.

So putting pen to paper (or cursor to rich text editor, as the case may be), my definition of Moneyball Marketing is partnering with sales to build measurable and predictable MQL flow through all available sources of new business, measured by MQL and Opportunity attainment, pipeline impact and business growth.

Yes that works as a definition.

Marketing and sales partnership – check.

Measurement and moving to predictive – check. 

Moving beyond leads or even MQL stats to driving pipeline impact and business growth – check.

So that can work as our “dictionary definition”, and beyond that let me share three key behaviors of a Moneyball Marketer:

(1) You run marketing like a business

I find this to be the most fundamental concept. Simply put, when making decisions, you are looking at it to answer the question “What’s best for the business?”. Not what’s best for marketing, not what’s best for you as an individual, or your boss, or your direct reports. Moneyball Marketing is about making well thought out, data driven business decisions every single day.

(2) You consider all opportunities for revenue growth

Moneyball Marketing and Demand Generation are liberating as they consist of all possible avenues to increase revenue, so a partial list:

• Programs to acquire new leads and nurture them

• Maximizing conversion rates through buying process including MQI-to-MQL, MQL-to-Opportunity (e.g. an Evaluation Process) and Win Rate

• Efficient and effective systems to support marketing and sales during the revenue process

• Digital Marketing programs to maximize impact of website as a demand generation tool

• Outbound sales prospecting programs

• Programs via channel - driving demand gen programs through channel partners

• Customer marketing to drive additional customer business through customer education and communications

(3) You are an advocate for Sales within Marketing

Sales management and  reps are incredibly busy, so the Moneyball Marketer has the opportunity to take the overall objectives of sales, which is to maximize revenue short term and long term, and add strategic value and be the advocate for sales within marketing, allowing sales management to focus on driving results for the month & quarter while getting their interests represented within the Sales & Marketing organization.

Next time I'll share the Seven Reasons I love Moneyball Marketing.

Introducing Moneyball Marketing

In January 2010 I moved from LiveTechnology, a growth startup with funding from Omnicom Group that for nearly a decade gave me amazing access to the top integrated marketing talent in the world to Avitage, a B2B marketing specialist firm outside of Boston. The timing could not have been better. Over those next few months I became deeply engrained in a fast moving, rapidly evolving B2B marketing landscape that had three emerging concepts.

Inbound Marketing – HubSpot defined and took ownership of this concept, stating that the new age of marketing was one not led by outbound, disruption tactics, but fueled by a content driven web presence that attracted prospects. HubSpot became the technology of choice, particularly for small businesses aiming to drive top of the funnel lead generation through their websites.

Content Marketing – I started following Joe Pulizzi who espoused the virtues of content marketing. Some came to say “All marketing is content marketing” (to dismiss the notion of content marketing as a new insight), but the point regardless was that the value of thinking like a publisher and creating content to serve the needs of your audience was going to be a key driver for marketing success more than ever before. And I noted in this interview with Aberdeen Group, Content Marketing is essential to Inbound Marketing success and is in fact bigger in scope than Inbound Marketing as it fuels interactions with buyers at all stages including existing customers.

Revenue Marketing - The momentum of Revenue Marketing trailed a bit from the other two concepts, I seem to remember both Marketo and Eloqua stepping into that theme around early 2011. To me, Revenue Marketing meant that the marketer could now impact and measure all the way through to opportunity/pipeline and wins in connecting marketing investments and programs to business impact.

Interestingly, as I Google search these phrases today, we can see how they compare in terms of broad appeal:

• 117,000 results for Revenue Marketing
• 1,140,000 results for Inbound Marketing (10X Revenue Marketing)
• 5,570,000 results for Content Marketing (48X Revenue Marketing)

So the Revenue Marketers are a more concentrated bunch, you might say, while the other concepts have more a broader following. Which is interesting because it's Revenue Marketing that drives sustained growth, through a variety of strategies, of which one will be Content Marketing. So you can make the case that Revenue Marketing is a much broader concept than Content Marketing in spite of only having 1/50th the buzz.

Which gets us to, the compilation of all three of these -- Moneyball Marketing. Moneyball Marketing is Revenue Marketing with a focus on data-driven business growth. Moneyball makes the mainstream connection to say we will do to Marketing what Billy Beane did to Baseball.... an analytics driven approach to building success. 

Moneyball Marketing requires a systematic and programmatic approach to scaling revenue through a marketing-to-sales end to end process.

Within this space we’ll discuss how to drive Moneyball Marketing including areas such as the Closed Loop Marketing process and systems required to power this and all the aspects of Demand Generation required to maximize the impact including digital marketing, marketing programs such as webinars,  customer marketing, influencer marketing, teleprospecting and sales prospecting programs.

I’ll get us started in the next post by defining three key behaviors of the Moneyball Marketer.