SPECIAL REPORT:
DELIVERING ROI
THE LATEST TRENDS IN DRIVING AND MEASURING MARKETING SUCCESS
SUMMER 2015
WWW.CHIEFMARKETER.COM | THE AUTHORITY ON MEASURABLE MARKETING. B2B LEAD GEN TRENDS P. 8 TAKING A CHANCE ON SWEEPS P. 12 THE POWER OF LIVE EVENTS P. 16 Mary Aufdemberg, director, product marketing, Daimler Trucks North America
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LONG HAUL Daimler Trucks gets great marketing mileage from a big picture brand story P. 2
WE ARE ANALYSTS & ARTISTS & DATA ARCHITECTS & CREATIVE DIRECTORS & EXECUTIVES & COPYWRITERS & STRATEGISTS & PRINTERS & MARKETING DIRECTORS & BRAND MANAGERS
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EDITOR’S NOTE
Real ROI, Right Now During the winter we had here in the Boston area, it seemed like summer would never arrive. Thank the stars, we’re now anticipating the return on investment of swimsuits and sunscreen, rather than snow shovels and roof rakes. For marketers, determining the ROI of creative and technical expenditures is a tad more complicated. In this special report, we examine the ways both B2B and B2C marketers are calculating the results of their spending, and offer ideas for making the most of online and offline marketing initiatives. Content marketing has become a major budget line item for B2B marketers, as brands look to creatively tell their tale to their target audience in a world where prospects are often careening to their buying decision before a sales rep even has a chance to say hello. Read how Daimler Trucks crafted the story of the “real cost” of truck ownership, and how Cisco is using humor to convey its brand value through online video. This, of course, is all part of the lead gen process, and figuring out which one of many touch points moved the needle isn’t an easy process. We delve into how brands are connecting at every point in the funnel, not only with content but integrated social strategies to reach B2B vertical markets.
On the B2C side, sweepstakes have a proven track record for driving engagement and ROI. Learn how brands like Skittles are combining sweeps with social media to amplify their reach and results. At retail, mobile and new technologies for sampling and ordering are influencing shopper behavior, and we explore ways Berringer, Amazon and others are going for the win. To increase the ROI of live events, brands are making the experience last long beyond the day of the event itself. (Now is a good time for a gratuitous plug for our own summer spectaculars in New York, PROMONext on June 16 and B2B LeadsCon, Aug. 24-26. Join us!) The right technology is what ties everything together and gives marketers the intelligence to make sense of it all. In our Tech RoundUp, learn the latest trends in ROI dashboards, what personalization options make sense for you, how to use your CRM system to its fullest potential and get an update on marketing automation. Beth Negus Viveiros Managing Editor Chief Marketer
[email protected] | @CMBethNegus
» SUMMER 2015
COVER STORY
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THE LONG HAUL Daimler Trucks North America gets great marketing mileage from a big picture brand story
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CONTENT
EVENTS
DIRECT MAIL
TELL A TALE Using storytelling to make your B2B brand more relevant and engaging
ARE YOU EXPERIENCED? Immersing customers in an experience before, during & after an event
CHAINGING WITH THE TIMES B2B catalogers & direct mailers stay relevant with increased targeting
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SPECIAL REPORT
SHOPPER MARKETING
SOLUTIONS
LEADING THE PACK How to stand out in a crowded B2B lead gen landscape
CROSSING THE AISLE Using social, tech & a personal touch to connect with shoppers instore & online
TECH ROUND-UP The latest trends in CRM, dashboards, personalizaton & automation
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SWEEPS
B2B SOCIAL
BACK PAGE
THE CHANGING FACE OF SWEEPS How mobile, social & gamification are changing the game
GETTING STRATEGIC B2B marketers get more sophisticated in their social planning
CM 4X4 Chief Marketer asks...how does your brand gauge marketing ROI?
COVER STORY
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long haul the
DAIMLER TRUCKS GETS GREAT MARKETING MILEAGE FROM A BIG PICTURE BRAND STORY BY BETH NEGUS VIVEIROS
he story of a truck’s journey is much more than simply driving from Point A to Point B. There’s a number of starts and stops along the way that factor heavily into the ride. Similarly, the journey of a truck owner from contemplation to purchase isn’t a simple trip either. In today’s challenging economic climate, truck owners are interested in the total cost of truck ownership, not just singular elements like mileage. The solution for Daimler was to create a campaign based on the “Real Cost of Ownership” for one of Daimler’s Freightliner trucks. “We’re the market share leader for Class 8 trucks, and we wanted to deliver a message to the market that resonated with the customer,” says Mary Aufdemberg, director, product marketing, Daimler Trucks North America. “Our message needed to be aligned to their real needs.” In the past, trucking company owners often looked at fuel efficiency above all else, says Matt Ferguson, senior partner, Eric Mower & Assoc., which created the campaign with Daimler. But there are other issues as well, such as safety and “uptime,” the amount of time needed for service and repairs.
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WHAT MATTERS “If your truck is in the shop, you’re losing money by the hour,” Ferguson notes. Connectivity is also a key element for freight truck owners today, he says. Owners need to be able to monitor where their trucks are on the road, as well as what is happening with the vehicle, to determine if a truck
needs to be taken off the road for servicing. A big part of Aufdemberg’s job is working with the dealerships to help them reach out to customers and sell the product. Ultimately, Daimler has multiple audiences to communicate with—the trucking industry, owners, drivers, the media and employees. “We needed a marketing strategy that could live across all of our platforms and audiences,” she says. A microsite was created, RCO.freightlinertrucks.com, to give fleet owners deeper content, including testimonial videos and access to webinars.
CROSSING LANES All of these messages needed to be inserted into advertising and promotions in a holistic way, because they all figure into purchasing decisions. The “Real Cost of Ownership” message carries across not only paid marketing efforts but also public relations, media interviews, trade show promotions and social media. Drivers on the road are heavily engaged in social, Ferguson notes, talking to one another and posting pictures of their vehicles. “There’s a camaraderie between truck drivers.” “Social has grown dramatically for us,” adds Aufdemberg. “Everyone in the trucking industry is mobile, and tablets and smartphones are the way to connect with family and friends on the road.” Daimler maintains active presence on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, as well as a community site, TeamRunSmart.com, where five drivers blog about their experiences on the road and—keeping on message— the real cost of driving and maintaining a truck. Continued on page 6
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COVER STORY “We needed a marketing strategy that could live across all of our platforms and audiences.” —Mary Aufdemberg, director, product marketing, Daimler Trucks North America
B2B STORYTELLING
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TELL A
TALE
USING STORYTELLING TO MAKE YOUR B2B BRAND MORE RELEVANT AND ENGAGING BY BETH NEGUS VIVEIROS
WWW.CHIEFMARKETER.COM » SUMMER 2015 » 5
to understand they should tell their stories in the context of what their customers and prospects are interested in,” says Gary Slack, chief experience officer of Chicago-based B2B agency Slack & Company. After all, if done wrong, stories can just be boring. “Brands need to resonate with those you work with now and those you want to work with in the future.” “Every brand is working on story, because it is the hot thing,” says Mark Baltazar, CEO of New York-based marketing and advertis-
ing agency Broadstreet. “Many brands have three audiences—B2B, B2C and B2E, which is employees and everyone else, But there needs to be one story that comes across and resonates across all your audiences. Too much B2B content is really just “brand fill,” says Slack. Companies are just pumping out content without considering their customer needs. “Organizations are interested in telling their story, but they don’t how to make it relevant. Most of their content won’t be remembered—if it even gets read.” Continued on page 6
WHY SO SERIOUS? DONE RIGHT, HUMOR CAN BE A POWERFUL B2B MARKETING TOOL Dying is easy, but comedy is hard—particularly if you want to sell someone something. Using humor in B2B marketing can be challenging in several ways, says Tim Washer, senior marketing manager, social media, Cisco Systems. Washer himself is a seasoned comedy veteran, with writing and performing credits on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” “Last Week with John Oliver,” “The Onion Sports Network” and many others. For one thing, it can be a challenge to simply get your team on board with the concept, and then getting it approved by the powers that be. Many people in the mix may have no experience with producing comedy (or even, dare we say it, a sense of humor), but still want to give their input. Washer says the first time he pitched humor in a corporate environment was at IBM, where he was a speech writer. The company wanted to inspire the sales force and change their behavior. “It sounded like a comedy video, but to be honest, everything sounds like a comedy video to me,” he says. He wrote a draft script for a presentation at an internal sales meeting and got a VP to sign off on it. Because this was for internal use only, the risk was lower than something that would go out to the general public. It played well to the Interviewing a customer home team, so the next year, they put the video and adding levity is a safe online. way to keep the humor Humor can be scary, because especially relevant and connected in today’s age of social media, if people are to the brand story, says offended, they’ll let you know—and fast. But it can be an even bigger risk to just play it safe with Washer. talking head videos, and making no impression on anyone. “Humor is subjective, and it will generate feedback,” he says. “If you put a boring piece of content out there, the nice thing is no one will comment on it—because they won’t watch it or they won’t care.” Social can be a simple and inexpensive way to test putting humor and personality into your marketing. Tweets around an idea or corporate character can get the ball rolling, as can things like funny captions for images on Instagram. Employees can be a great resource here, and can provide fodder for your social stream of content and ideas. “Humanizing the brand is where the real value is,” says Washer. “If you can make someone laugh in a business context, that’s the most intimate connection, particularly if the laughter comes from an industry pain point. Show that you understand customers and communicate that you know their struggles and what they are going through.” Testing is always a good idea, and when using humor in the mix—particularly if people are nervous and this is new for your brand—it’s a must. If you have a new video, before putting it up on YouTube for the world to see, show it live to a group at an internal meeting. “Seeing how people respond and seeing them laugh will give your vice president confidence to push it out,” he says. And while you may have some folks in your office who are hilarious around the water cooler, Washer recommends investing in professional actors used to performing on camera. “Solid scripts fall apart because someone doesn’t have a rhythm for comedy.” Many B2B brands like to showcase their customers in videos, to add personality to the brand. Consider hiring an improv actor or comedian who knows how to be professional, work clean and think on his or her feet, he suggests. This will add a bit of spontaneous humor to your videos. A video with your customer (and your brand) laughing in the moment shows you’re not trying to control the message that that your brand is indeed staffed by actual human beings. Washer has successfully done that with several Cisco clients. For one series of videos, he interviewed several customers one on one, posing as a very inquisitive and overly friendly waiter in a restaurant. It got everyone out of a conference room, looked different and was fun for everyone involved, even the CIOs who might not necessarily choose to be in front of the camera. In another video with Goldcorp Eleonore, he went onsite in a mine to showcase a ventilation system’s Wi-Fi component Cisco helped implement. Washer asked questions that were serious but kept it fun. “Interviewing a customer and adding levity is a safe approach, because it keeps the humor tightly connected to a customer’s story,” he says. “It feels relevant and not tacked on.”—BNV
B2B STORYTELLING
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hink about the stories that you’ve loved. Whether you heard them as an adult or a child, they connected with you because on some level, they resonated with your desires and experiences. To engage prospects and buyers, B2B marketers need to tell their brand tale in a way that is relevant to not only the brand’s goal but the audience’s needs as well. “B2B brands are getting more attuned to the need to tell their stories, but they need
B2B STORYTELLING
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Continued from page 5 Too much content is created by committee—PR, corporate communications and even customer service gets involved and the focus ends up being on just spotlighting the company, and not providing anything of use. “It’s like it was created by the sales prevention department, with an inability to be bold or stand out.”
HAVE A PERSONALITY What can you do to make your content stand out? Start with your customers, says Slack, and do some research. “I’m a big believer in having conversations with your target audience,” he says. “What are they reading? Where are they getting their information? What [sites] have become their daily and weekly habits? Then, pay attention and let that information guide you.” Too much content is created in a corporate vacuum, says Slack. “You can’t just sit around a table with no real input.” Stories are so important because they spark emotions and help people make sense of the bigger picture, says Baltazar. “People are people, no matter whether they are acting as a consumer or a professional. Everyone has emotions.” A common mistake in business-tobusiness is that marketers think they have to always be serious and talk results, only appealing to the left side of the brain. Everyone stiffens up and gets dry, and that’s a mistake, says Baltazar. Brands need to tap into their business partners’ emotions. “People love brands with personalities, and that sometimes gets lost in B2B,” adds Matthew Flachsenhaar, project producer, Broadstreet. “Facts are important, but people still want to be compelled and motivated.” Sometimes, B2B brands stay serious because they worry if they step down from
their pedestal and be a bit self-deprecating they’ll no longer look like a leader. But the reverse is true, says Flachsenhaar—showing a human side by being humorous or warm helps prospects and customers relate to your brand. B2B marketers need to create content in a variety of formats, to share their story with as wide a potential audience as possible, he notes. Some prospects will respond better to ads, while others gravitate to articles or whitepapers. Others attention will be piqued with quicker bites of information like video or infographics. “People’s attention spans are so low that you need to communicate as painlessly and effortlessly as possible,” says Slack. “Find quicker and faster ways to communicate your messaging.” This is a huge reason for the rise in popularity of video in B2B marketing, he notes. In years past, brands might create 15- or 20-minute videos to tell their story, using a “cast” of whoever was available around the office. Now, they’re keeping it brief and using professional actors who are comfortable with being on camera. Done right, video can serve as the “shoe horn” that gets someone interested in a topic and ready for longer, more intricate content. Brands need to remember that while technology helps them tell the story, technology isn’t the story itself. Relevancy is key, no matter what the medium or platform you’re using to get your point across, says Baltazar, and sometimes, technology can just get in the way. For example, at live events sometimes companies create apps and games to engage attendees with the brand. But attendees’ zeal to get points and play along sometimes get in the way of the actual brand message and
making human connections at the event. “Sometimes, you need to let the ‘power of live’ just happen,” says Flachsenhaar.
DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES Remember too, that your brand doesn’t necessarily own its own story. Everyone who interacts with your brand—your marketing team, the company’s employees, consumers—interprets the brand story differently. People will go the way they want to, adds Flachsenhaar. “Person one might do something because it makes them feel one way, while person two reacts because they feel differently.” “People have the duality of being people and business people at the same time,” notes Gaston Legorburu, executive director and chief creative officer of interactive agency SapientNitro. In today’s highly connected digital world, marketers have a wealth of real time data that helps them see how people are responding and interacting, he says. This enables brands on both the B2B and the B2C side to test and shift their marketing accordingly. Some marketers have a tendency to cater to the left brain, and others to the right, and it really needs to be a mix of both to truly connect. Legorburu notes that his firm has done extensive research around digital shopper behavior. As shoppers are tracked throughout the day, it can seem like you’re watching someone with ADHD who’s had a few Red Bulls and no sleep. “This empowered and erratic consumer is the same person who is in corporate America,” says Legorburu. “They have this same level of multitasking and you need to build a portrait of this person.”
Continued from page 3 In mobile, Daimler’s most important tool is an app to assist the sales force. It provides a variety of specs, as well as critical information for sales people to share with prospects about truck ownership. The purchase cycle can vary dramatically when it comes to buying trucks, she notes. Some people come to the vendor already knowing exactly what they want to buy. Big f leets Five drivers of Daimler trucks blog about their experiences on often rotate in new vehicles TeamRunsSmart.com.
frequently, say, every three years. Independent owner operators might hold on to their trucks for a decade or more. What’s the overall ROI of Daimler’s marketing efforts? “Honestly, for us we look at market share and sales,” says Aufdemberg. “Because we’re B2B and much of what we do is reaching out to customers, a lot of our measurement [is based on] driving customers to dealer websites and ultimately driving sales and ownership.”
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B2B LEAD GEN
B2B LEAD GEN
Leading the Pack USING CONTENT AND INTEGRATED MARKETING TO STAND OUT IN A CROWDED B2B LEAD GEN LANDSCAPE By Beth Negus Viveiros
Everyone knows that a solid content marketing plan is essential to generating solid B2B leads. The problem is…everyone knows that a solid content marketing plan is essential to generating solid B2B leads. And that means there’s a lot of content out there. “Early adopters to content marketing had the greatest impact, but now everyone is numb with all the different messages they’re receiving,” says Ryan Gould, vice president, strategy and marketing services, Elevation B2B Marketing. “Everyone is getting flooded with content. It’s hard to stand out and differentiate yourself.” Variety is key—today, marketers not only need to create content, they need to personalize it and have specific goals in mind. Create content with different audiences and platforms in mind, such as search or inbound marketing strategies, he says. “Content needs to be sharable and have the legs to do what you want it to accomplish.” Content needs to connect with all the different people involved in the often complex
decision-making process. “Focus on creating an emotional connection,” says Gould. “You need to look at B2B buyers in a way that connects emotionally not only with the initial contact but everyone in the process.” The more you know about your customer, the better you’ll do when it comes to creating content that will address their buying criteria and show them why your organization is different, reasons Pat McAuley, vice president/ account director, Mobium.
them through the sales funnel.” Elevation’s customer LifeLock has successfully created content that is effectively engaging prospects earlier in
THE CHANGING FUNNEL B2B buyers are doing more and more research before they even identify themselves to a vendor as a potential lead. This means marketers must create more touch points for prospects to connect with them organically as early in the process as possible. “The more engaged and interested they are, the more they will want to provide their content information,” McAuley says. “Rich content will help move
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Marketo used a coloring book to connect with email recipients.
the process. “Especially in the tech space, there can be a lot of complexity relating to channels and resellers,” says Gould. “Content is still a pain point— and it’s not just the ability to produce content. After all, it’s the rare person that hasn’t figured
out that if you don’t have content, you can’t make demand gen work right,” says Howard J. Sewell, president of Spear Marketing Group. “Right now, the challenge is quantity over quality.” “There’s just a volume of really bad content out there,” he continues. “The challenge is discovering whether different formats or topics make your content stand out from the rest. Everyone has the ‘five key tips to whatever’ and is wondering how they make to make their five tips stand out from the next guy’s.” What type of content works best? That depends, of course, on where a prospect is in the funnel. Things like infographics that are easily sharable work well in the early stages, but will not necessarily ultimately drive a purchase, says Sewell. “Marketers are always looking for the next whiz-bang shiny thing to make their content stand apart,” says Sewell. “Ultimately, it comes down to the content itself and the subject matter. We have clients producing ebooks and whitepapers that are working really well because they are on point and topical. But I’m amazed at the content out there that is
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just pabulum. At the end of the day, if the content doesn’t speak to our audience, it doesn’t matter how many flashing lights are on it.”
The top of the funnel is the fun part, says Sewell, and in some ways that can be the easiest part to measure. But for companies looking to drive ROI, sometimes the middle of the funnel can be easier to KNOW THE LINE improve. Many marketers Quadrennial Energy Review sti l l aren’t le veraging An Integrated Approach to marketing automation and Grid Planning POWER SURGE available technology to design programs that will perform best to generate PREVENTING demand and leads. “Lead gen has become more CY BERATT CAN UTILITIES HA ACKS CK IT? about the lead lifecycle UTILITIES AND MIC than just about feeding ROGRIDS: Getting Closer to Cust omers the beast at the top of the funnel.” “B2B prospects are Landis+Gyr created a quarterly more adept at dodging marketers ezine to engage prospects. until they are ready to connect,” says McAuley. “They’re connected with colleagues and peers and gather information and do their other products, but whether own research without ever talking they would be compatible with to a salesperson, because every- any new technologies that debut in the future. thing is online.” MARCH 2015
A Landis+Gyr Publicatio n
FutureReady WHERE THE SMAR T GRID
IS HEADING
Distribution Data Helps Utilities Mitigate Line Losses
Getting Ready for Renewables
they served. That content was also parsed out in whitepapers, articles and in other formats to reach a wide audience of prospects via email, social media, search and other channels. A content focused microsite BeFutureReady.com also helped engaged potential customers with the brand, and helped grow the company’s database. “We found that people who were engaged with the content were much more qualified visitors than those who weren’t exposed to thought leadership,” says Cannon. “And Landis+Gyr do a good job of keeping it consistent and predictable. It isn’t easy to wrangle subject experts, but it’s been a pretty big win because [their audience] feels they understand what they are up against.”
MAKING SENSE OF IT ALL Attribution in lead gen is a challenge for some, but it all comes down to having a clear understanding of how all your marketing elements are working together. “The challenge is to find that integration and see the value of what [everything] is doing and how we are executing in our
“B2B prospects are more adept at dodging marketers until they are ready to connect. They do their own research without ever talking to a salesperson.”—Pat McAuley, Mobium Obviously, an age-old challenge is budget and manpower, says McAuley. “Setting up systems to generate, nurture and convert leads through a long sales cycle is not only costly but can be outside the range of experience for marketing folks.” For some B2B organizations, distribution channels can present a problem because a distributor may have the first-hand connection with a customer, meaning the
“This [equipment] is a huge purchase, so companies wanted to make sure that what they purchased today wouldn’t be quickly outmoded—‘future positioning’ was a big concern,” says Dave Cannon, vice president, creative technology, Movéo, which works with the manufacturer. To address these fears, Landis+Gyr created a quarterly ezine that focused on a variety of topics for the markets
environment,” says Gould. Knowing what moved the needle is essential, says McAuley. “Some companies will generate tons of leads, but they have no way to track and gauge the effectiveness of those leads and they can’t follow through to make the process worth it.” “It can be hard to understand the weight of each thing in your marketing mix,” says Cannon. “Many people look at last-click
conversion but there are things in the middle.” “We’re seeing a lot more harmony between sales and marketing, as they [come around] to the idea that their needs are similar,” says Gould. “Sales needs smarter and more qualified leads, and they have to rely on marketing to understand the needs of the customer.” The role of the demand gen marketer has changed significantly, says Sewell. “I really think there’s a talent crunch out there—marketing has become so much about technology and we’re seeing marketing departments struggle to build what we call a modern demand gen engine. You really need people who are creative, strategic and can even program a little HTML.” Marketers need to remember that influencers are extremely important to connect with in the early part of the lead and demand gen process. “ You shouldn’t focus too much on the decision maker and lose site of the influencer—there needs to be balance. After all, an admin might be tasked with finding a particular service,” says Cannon. “Of course, the cost per lead goes up with the more people you’re trying to reach and there might be more waste.” New leads are important, but don’t forget the names that are already in your database, says Cannon. Maybe the timing wasn’t right when a lead was initially generated, but that doesn’t mean you should give up on those leads forever. “Clean up the names you have and refocus.”
CHANNEL CHANGING Everyone is getting 30 to 40 emails a day, which means marketers must stand out in the inbox. “Are you providing the potential customer something that works with specific goal?” says Gould. “It goes back to personalization , and tying [your email message] back together with other content in PR and branding and making it more holistic.” Continued on page 11
B2B LEAD GEN
WHAT MAKES A DIFFERENCE?
marketer is a step removed. And on a granular level, says McAuley, it can be tricky to get prospects to opt-in to receive messages so the lead can be captured. Energy solution manufacturer Landis+Gyr found that many of their prospects weren’t necessarily concerned about the capabilities of their meters and
Entries Due: JUNE 25 Late Deadline: JULY 9
TECHNOLOGY DRIVING MARKETING SUCCESS The 2nd Annual Marketing ARC Awards celebrates the best marketing campaigns utilizing technology to produce stellar results, as judged by a jury of expert peers.
2015
Put your brand, client, or tech solution in the spotlight as an industry leader, and get the recognition you deserve!
Visit www.marcawards.com for more information, and to enter!
WWW.CHIEFMARKETER.COM » SUMMER 2015 » 11
advertising on Facebook. For example, says Sewell, someone wanting to target CTOs at financial organizations could use direct mail as part of the mix in a drip marketing effort over weeks or months. “On a cost-per-lead model, it’s still tough,” says Sewell. “You just have to pick your battles.” Likewise, search isn’t always the slamdunk it once was. “Paid search is a huge channel, but we’ve got clients in hugely competitive categories,” he says. “One was facing $30 to $40 cost-per-click. It would take an act of God to prove that ROI.” Programmatic advertising is starting to eat into search budgets, and can be effective in reaching the right person in the right job function, Sewell says. “ You need to cut through the noise and align to market needs,” says Cannon. “Enewsletter sponsorships do well for us because of that reason—they’re focused, so we know we’re getting in front of the right people.” w
THE ROLE OF SOCIAL While it is useful in creating engagement, Gould notes that many marketers are
having a hard time adopting social media for lead gen. On the flip side, search engines place a significant value on social. “ Focus on finding the right communities for your audience,” says Gould. “Posting on Facebook just for the sake of posting on Facebook isn’t as effective [as identifying] brand advocates.” Blogging has become a bit of a stale word for some, but the evidence is there, says Gould. “Businesses who engage in active blogging and create communities are seeing success. Content needs to resonate—those who focus on sales collateral [in their blogs] are missing out on an opportunity to tell a story that will connect with and engage a potential customer.” “For a long time, blogs were the province of the PR team,” agrees Sewell. “People were just posting up trade show info and press releases, but now, they’re executing on the full potential and building blogs that are very lead gen-oriented with followable, downloadable content. We have clients who show a 700% ROI on social because they’re designing blogs in such a way that they’re driving an actionable, measurable, response.”
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Continued from page 9 People are waking up to the idea that they have to be thought leaders, notes Sewell. “Taking people at any state of the selling cycle and engaging them in a consistent stream of value-added education is something that comes up all the time.” For many B2B marketers, the role of email in the lead nurturing process comes in once the prospect has raised their hand and opted-in to receive communications. “One of the most exciting things with predictive modeling is that we can build lists for clients looking at criteria like social behavior, because a lot of companies can’t depend on inbound exclusively. They need to be proactive.” Marketo, a partner of Spear, used a coloring book to connect with email recipients. “It was a little off the wall, but it’s not just about reaching people who are ready to buy your product. It’s about engaging with marketers and getting them to take notice and share socially and develop a group of people you can nurture.” Direct mail is still relevant in B2B, but often in conjunction with email and other campaigns such as customer audience
SWEEPSTAKES
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THE CHANGING FACE OF SWEEPS HOW MOBILE, SOCIAL AND GAMIFICATION ARE REVOLUTIONIZING THE ENGAGEMENT POTENTIAL OF SWEEPSTAKES AND COMPETITIONS BY PATRICIA ODELL
weepstakes are no longer simple child’s play. Grand prizes have grown to enormous cash awards or life-changing vacations and events. Even smaller prizes have grown substantially in variety and numbers offered to draw more players. Gamification gets consumers interacting with your brand in ways never before imagined, while mobile and social tie-ins encourage consumers to share the promotion with friends. All of these together give marketers ways to capture a multitude of data to continue the connection beyond the game.
S
Here’s how your brand can capitalize on the potential of sweeps.
THE SOCIAL FACTOR Social media has dramatically changed the way marketers deliver sweepstakes and how they perform. Some of the most effective sweeps use social media to “amplify entries and voting,” says Steve Caputo, managing partner, Tenthwave. As an example, he cites the popular “Frito-Lay’s Do Us a Flavor” contest, where entrants are asked to suggest new flavors for Lay’s potato chips. The public votes via social
media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, Vine and Instagram, or via text. “Each vote doubles as a sweepstakes entry too, ratcheting up engagement not just from budding chip chefs but voters as well,” he says. And when it comes to identifying an audience, think narrow and targeted. At the most basic level, you don’t want to “waste” a prize on someone who isn’t in your target market. For instance, when Tenthwave created a social media scavenger hunt to promote Duncan Hines’ holiday line of Frosting Creations, it had enough research about the highly targeted audience of avid bakers to know that
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they used various platforms differently—Pinterest provided inspiration, Twitter was used for customer service. These differences influenced the design of the game, which pulled twice as many players as expected. “The better you can identify your target audience, the better you can use multiple channels to reach them,” Caputo says. Another tip, don’t just rely on social viral share or on word-of-mouth alone to promote your campaign. The occasional viral superstar—such as the ALS ice-bucket challenge to name one example that took off in social as well as other channels—gives many marketers a sense of bravado—“my promotion is even better, so of course word will spread on its own.” This is the same sort of thinking that has led many an aspiring actor to make his way to Hollywood, only to end up flipping burgers at In-n-Out. “If you don’t promote it,” insists Caputo, “it won’t go viral on its own.”
HAVE A PLAN According to Kontest, a platform to create and spread promotions across all channels, campaigns with an advertising budget gain 10 times as many entrants as those without. “It’s much easier to share photos and videos through your existing social networks,” says Jim Higgins, vice president, digital at The Marketing Store. “And for brands, it’s important to engage their audience where they are already engaged.” Plan ahead when creating a marketing strategy for your sweepstakes, and make sure your efforts in social, mobile and everywhere in between are integrated with other departments. “Probably the biggest missed opportunity we see is a lack of media integration,” says John Findlay, founder of digital engagement agency Launchfire. “That’s usually a function of insufficient planning and the siloed natures of organizations. Even getting spots in your corporate email blasts—that has to be planned ahead of time, because other stakeholders want those spots as well. If you don’t plan it out in advance, you don’t get to promote your sweepstakes. There’s only a certain amount of messaging you can push out via your dedicated media without risking fatigue.” Not planning far enough ahead—and not getting budgets finalized in time—can end up costing you money. If you don’t plan out enough in advance, Findlay says, you won’t have a robust enough media plan to entice partners to offer free prizing. “Companies at the top level should recognize that the sooner they give their constituents the money, the more they’ll get for their money and the better their results,” he says. Follow up is a big player as well, so milk that promotional value of a sweepstakes even after the contest is over. “Very seldom do you ever hear the story of the winner, and to me that’s a massive missed opportunity,” Findlay says. He also suggests keeping certain games— those that are true games not simply the digital equivalent of a slot machine—live even after the sweepstakes itself has ended.
PRIVACY CONCERNS Consumers are becoming more wary of sharing personal information, which means marketers have become extremely sensitive to privacy issues. Every data breach, even those not directly related to contests or sweepstakes, ratchets up mistrust among consumers.
“This affects data capture, security and compliance while running a game or sweeps— before, during and after the promotion,” says Tenthwave’s Caputo. “Awareness about privacy raises the bar on the security that agencies and vendors must have to continue to do the job of consumer promotion.” Multiple platforms for entries, consumer voting, myriad rules and regulations regarding privacy, and the continuing need to keep up with and adhere to legislation are making games much more time- and labor-intensive to implement and oversee. Another time-consuming job is keeping an eye on cheats. Bot submissions, vote swapping and other ways of “gaming” games are among the biggest challenges facing marketers involved in contests and sweeps, says Bruce Hollander of Don Jagoda Associates. “The better the promotion, the more likely somebody is going to try to steal from you,” PrizeLogic CEO Keith Simmons says. “Make sure you are working with someone that has significant experience dealing with cheaters.”
THE INTEGRATION GAME More companies are integrating games, sweeps and contests into the overall customer experience. “We’re starting to see brands more aggressively move away from the old siloed sweepstakes campaigns—where each year, a brand runs one or two independent and unrelated sweepstakes with periods of inactivity in between—to using sweepstakes as an integral part of an ‘always on’ customer experience platform such as a mobile app or loyalty program,” says The Marketing Store’s Jim Higgins. “Through a combination of true utility—such as apps that support shopping functions—and rewards and promotions, a brand can deliver the right value exchange required to keep customers engaged all year long. Leveraging sweepstakes within an ‘always on’ platform can provide an added layer of engagement and help to dimensionalize the brand in ways that utilitarian shopping functions, coupons, or rewards might not be able to do on their own.” The emergence of gamification as a bona fide word, let alone strategy, is perhaps the greatest trend to emerge in the use of sweepstakes, contests and games as a promotional tactic. And according to app provider Kontest, more than 70% of large companies planned to use gamification in their marketing programs last year. “A game itself isn’t necessarily gamified,” Continued on page 14
SWEEPSTAKES
Duncan Hines used a social media scavenger hunt to promote the holiday line of Frosting Creations, utilizing different social channels to engage bakers.
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MONEY MATTERS SWEEPSTAKES
4 BUDGET CONSIDERATIONS WHEN PLANNING A SWEEPSTAKES OR CONTEST: 1. Scale Is this global? National? Local? Each affects the complexity and cost of any marketing effort, but especially sweepstakes. When you factor in global complexities such as legalities, language and cultural sensitivity, the intended scale of your promotion can make or break your ability to deliver. 2. Relevant Prizing What’s the right mix of attainable and aspirational prizing that will capture consumer interest and drive participation? It might be $1 million or it might be one iPad. You need to do your research and understand your target to define the right triggers to motivate behavior—especially when it involves asking for personally identifiable information. 3. Delivery Channels How are consumers going to find out about the sweepstakes, and how will they participate? Where can we work it into our omnichannel strategy? Is it a social sweepstakes? Do we need a website? What is an efficient and effective way to serve up alternate methods of entry? All of these seemingly basic questions are often the starting point for some big cost drivers. 4. Levels of Support How are we going to get the word out, and once the word is out, how do we maintain it? This is a broad question that covers a lot of ground where some big costs can come into play: media, technology and people. A large national sweepstakes often requires a significant media buy, a scalable technology infrastructure and people to run it all—whether it’s creative, developers, project management or legal counsel, there are a lot of people behind the scenes helping to ensure a flawless execution.— Jim Higgins, vice president, digital for The Marketing Store
Continued from page 13 Launchfire’s Findlay says. “Gamification is taking otherwise banal tasks and turning them into a game so that people will do them.” For instance, to drive email and SMS optins, Facebook likes and social sharing, Launchfire built restaurant chain Cracker Barrel a game where by “driving” a car along a virtual road trip, participants were rewarded for additional entries into a prize drawing for completing each task. Players also won entries for answering trivia questions and were able to click a link to the Cracker Barrel site for hints, so visiting the brand’s website became an element of the game. Another example comes from the candy brand Skittles. Sure, the game rock-paper-scissors has been around for millennia, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be improved upon. Skittles, and parent Wrigley, decided to sweeten the proceedings and raise the stakes while driving sales and encouraging engagement. And so the “Rock Paper Skittles National Championship” was born. In the original game, scissors “cut,” or trump, paper; paper “wraps around” rock and rock “smashes” scissors. In the Skittles version, a Strawberry Skittle “peels” an Orange Skittle, which in turn “squeezes” a Lemon Skittle, and so on. So far, so cute. But the brand integrated digital technology into the game as well. Visitors to the Skittles website could enter into duels with other consumers. The players would each hold up a Skittles candy in front of their webcams; the site’s “Skittles Recognition Technology” would distinguish between the two flavors and pick the winner. Those
without a webcam or (gasp) a pack of Skittles could still play by selecting flavors on the site itself. The grand prize was $50,000 and a Skittles champion belt, which came with a Skittles dispenser, of course. Skittles promoted the contest using social and banner ads, social posts, and displays in convenience stores; no traditional mass media were used to raise awareness. Nonetheless, during the three-month campaign, more than 3.5 million consumers visited the
Online, consumers could engage in “Rock Paper Skittles” battles; during a three month campaign, more than 3.5 million competed.
online game, exceeding goal by nearly 300%, and more than 1.5 million users entered the sweepstakes. The average entrant played the game nearly 40 times, apparently working up an appetite while doing so: Sales of Skittles nationwide rose 2.5%. Just how much of a trend is gamification? M2 Research estimates that marketing spend on gamified programs will hit $2.8 billion in 2016, up from just $100 million in 2010. Those figures include not just promo-
tions but everything from employee training to customer onboarding, but it’s a remarkable increase nonetheless.
PRIZES BIG AND SMALL There’s lots of discussion around what works best: smaller, more immediate prizes, like movie tickets, versus larger cash and prize incentives, say $1million or a trip around the world. Much depends on the brand, the timing and other factors, which can make the case for strong benefits for both types of prizing. More games—and more loyalty programs, for that matter—are offering what Barry Kirk, vice president, loyalty strategy at Maritz Motivation Solutions, calls “low burner rewards:” more immediate prizes, even if those prizes are relatively small, in addition to a larger prize. Sara Lee ran just such a promotion to increase sales and awareness of the State Fair Brand corn dog with an offer to win $500,000 toward a new home and 10,000 instant-win prizes including HDTVs, appliance, grills and other household items. Players entered unique codes on specially marked packages to collect rooms. The $500,000 went to the person who collected all the rooms. Along the way, 1.5 million game codes were redeemed by 250,000 customers growing the brands online consumer database by 400%. The promo was developed by Launch Creative and SCA Promotions, which underwrote the risk. “The creativity keeps growing,” says Christine Bennett, worldwide sales director, SCA. “So if you don’t have the budget to put aside $1 milion, here’s an opportunity to do something really big.”
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EVENTS
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ARE YOU EXPERIENCED? IMMERSING CUSTOMERS IN AN EXPERIENCE TO CREATE ENGAGEMENT BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER A LIVE EVENT By Patricia Odell
N
o longer content with just reaching customers and prospects at live events, marketers are now engulfing them in an experience that begins long before the event and lasts far beyond. It’s never been more important to take advantage of the time leading up to a live event, to capture rich, valuable data— both during the run up and at the event—and to then extend the life of the event, not just a mere few weeks, but for months and months, even a year. “Live events and other realtime experiences should serve as a jumping off point or part of an overall plan for year-round engagement and consumer interaction,” says Aaron Clark, vice president of mobile sales and operations at HelloWorld. “If it’s a one-time activation, you risk losing the connection that you just put time, effort and—if it’s a landmark event— a lot of money into.” Johnson & Johnson and its agency Octagon executed a lengthy campaign for J&J’s sponsorship of last summer’s FIFA World Cup in Brazil. World Cup mania dominated the news cycle for at least four weeks prior to the events, paving a sleek marketing path for J&J to travel on leading up to the matches. J&J, as the first FIFA World Cup healthcare sponsor, took advantage of that long lead-
time to create experiences that hadn’t been done before. The experiential campaign, “Tour do Carinho”—or “Caring Tour” took on the urgent need for blood donations. A bus was customized to replicate the same vehicle used by a local blood center partner in Rio to amplify that center’s efforts. The team traveled to 11 host cities taking blood donations during that wildly passionate and exciting fourmonth build up to the World Cup. Through the Make-A-Wish Foundation three children, facing health issues that could be treated by blood transfusions, served as ambassadors. The children appeared in a YouTube video with some of the donors. It amassed 3.5 million views. “ The investments are so heavy, sponsors want to know how they can get more out of their sponsorships, both farther away and once the events are over,” says Andre Schunk, senior vice president of marketing at Octagon. “Programs that have legs start way in advance and have residual effects on the back end.” O nly about 1.9% of th e Brazilian population donates blood each year, compared to 5% in the United States and 7% in Europe. Social, PR and local news outlets and celebrities drove awareness for the events, which drew 23,000 donations, enough blood to save more than 93,000 lives, the Red Cross said.
As the matches got underway, that success in collecting blood donations was the “great story to tell,” Schunk says. “Tour do Carinho” was featured at J&J’s commercial display in every stadium and FIFA Fan Fest locations during the
it launched in 2012 in conjunction with the World Cup to offer 14,000 World Cup volunteers and 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup volunteers free healthcare screening, developing another great brand story to relay far beyond the World Cup.
Bud Light fans could purchase a siren that would go off when their favorite sports team scored.
FIFA World Cup. A sand sculpture was built next to J&J’s Family Area activation at the Fan Fest on Copacabana beach in Rio. On June 14, “World Blood Donor Day,” J&J promoted blood donation on LED field boards next to the pitch and visible to millions of TV viewers. “It was a way to disrupt the whole system and do something that was new and fresh,” he says. “The content we were delivering was a real service to the country, a real need that had to be addressed.” Also during the matches, J&J tapped into its “Care Inspires Care” brand campaign
J&J also asked fans to volunteer to distribute care packages and write messages to Brazilian kids unable to make it to the World Cup. Sunglasses, health posters, toothbrushes, Johnson’s soap and Sundown sunblock were taken to local schools and distributed by the mascot Fuleco, an armadillo, to 80,000 kids. “There’s lots of storytelling around that,” Schunk says. “The care package story was a great way to wrap up the program.” DATA DRIVES LIVE EVENTS
There’s no other way to start a live consumer event than with audience generation, which
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such as a photo shoot or video opportunity where attendees can then tap the RFID tag and have the photo or video quickly shared on their social channels. “ The chip isn’t really an issue for people,” says Grossman. “The best practice is all about value propositions. If using the chip enhances the experience they will have, of course they will do it.”
terms of current attendee app usage say 85% of attendees use apps today and 94% will use them by 2016. Freebies like logo t-shirts and hats haven’t gone away, but the focus is increasingly shifting toward multimedia experiences, particularly utilizing mobile devices, says DJ Saul, CMO/managing director of Washington, DC-based digital agency iStrategyLabs.
branded object that consumers pay for? A marketer’s dream.” Of course, the old standbys like attendance and number of premiums distributed are still key metrics to consider. But also take into consideration less objective metrics and data points specific to a particular campaign. For instance, Fiskars, a brand of shears, scissors and other home and garden tools, used multiple metrics to determine
ENGAGING WITH APPS
A new survey from the Event Marketing Institute and Cvent predicts a dramatic increase in how event attendees will value and engage with mobile event apps over the next two years. Forty-four percent of attendees on average are using mobile event apps today, a number expected to increase to 56% next year, the survey found. The apps provide a powerful tool for brands and agencies for improving event management, delivering information and content, capturing data and analytics, and fostering networking between attendees and sponsors. The survey also found: • By 2016, 88% of planners say attendees will consider mobile apps critical to their event experience. • 86% of planners will have an app at their event by next year. • The top 10% of respondents in
Johnson & Johnson’s “Tour do Carinho” encouraged blood donations during the FIFA World Cup.
He cites Budweiser’s Red Lights program in Canada as a “killer example of this, where consumers actually purchased a physical Bud-branded ‘siren,’ connected it to Wi-Fi and indicated their favorite team, and it would then go off and flash every time their team scored a goal in real life, in real time. A physical
the effectiveness of its spring 2014 Discover the Difference mobile tour, which made more than 50 stops in 19 cities. After each stop, the tour managers used a custom portal to collate data such as weather conditions, number of premiums distributed, video testimonials, attendance and retailer reaction.
THE VIRAL EFFECT Amplifying the reach of events before, during and after is essential, making social vital to marketers. But there’s still work to be done. Some 70% of top companies and brands ranked social marketing related to event programs as “extremely” or “very important,” according to a new study from FreemanXP and the Event Marketing Institute. Even so, just 16% said their efforts to generate viral impact were “very effective” and only 21% thought the efforts were “effective.” The top strategy around social share and engagement is to drive attendance, followed by reaching attendees during the event. One emerging trend is to use social to reach important segments that may not actually attend the events like prospects, industry members and influencers. The importance of work on viral social impact is in the numbers: 50% of the event marketers and exhibitors who respond-
ed to the study have a specific budget for viral efforts. Another 53% are increasing spending and 53% actually measure their event-related viral impact. The potential ROI is huge: The average viral touches, communications, connections, shares and impressions per event for all respondents to the survey is nearly 1.4 million. How do you remedy the disconnect between social marketing as a top priority and the weak results? For event marketers and exhibitors, there is significant awareness about the importance of creating memorable moments and content worth capturing and sharing across digital channels. Clearly, over the next few years more consumer and B2B marketers will focus efforts on developing engaging event content strategies to earn increased social engagement from targeted fans, the study said.—PO
EVENTS
typically starts in digital via email or social, so marketers have some level of data about who might attend. What becomes important onsite is to engineer the event to produce and capture even more valuable data. Digitized experiences like touchscreens, kiosks and personal devices create moments within the live experience to capture data that is important to the brand. Then, the idea is to provide ways for attendees to volunteer data. One is the use of RFID tags, which many event producers use. As attendees register, that record is paired with an RFID chip the person takes with him throughout the multi-phase experience with the brand. Incentives to use the tags can be provided, like offering a chance to win a premium in exchange for personal information, says Ben Grossman, vice president, strategy director, Jack Morton Worldwide. People who volunteer to use the tags are inherently more likely to be interested in learning about the brand, be loyal to the brand and willingly provide data in exchange for an enhanced personalized experience. “ That’s quite powerful ,” he says. Any number of interactions can be built into the experience
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EVENTS
Measuring the Impact of Experiences There are three major problems with the way many marketers measure the ROI of their experiential marketing: 1. Objective-Less Planning: Frequently, experiential marketing efforts are ideated and executed without consideration for the business objective they are trying to achieve. Without defining how success will be measured and planning against those metrics, results can fall flat. 2. Lack of Integration: No one marketing channel can accomplish everything, which is the reason for the existence of integrated marketing and communications planning. If experiential efforts live and are measured on an island, they can end up underleveraged in term so of overall reach and undervalued due to a lack of integration with the full customer lifecycle. 3. Unsophisticated Measurement: While great strides have been made in recent years in terms of the measurement of digital marketing,
experiential has lagged significantly. The offline equivalent of last click attribution) is often employed by companies looking at the “success” of their experiential efforts. Here are a few principles to abide by: Pre-Define Success & Metrics: If you don’t know what a bullseye is, chances are you won’t hit it. It’s important to understand exactly what your business challenge is, then develop concrete and realistic metrics defined to demonstrate success. Just because something can be measured, doesn’t mean it should be. We suggest using a categorization system to help organize your plan. Return on Investment: ROI is the best type of measurement to determine the ultimate success of a live experience and demonstrate return in terms of business value. This is the type of measurement that often holds up best when considering marketing mix optimization.
Key Performance Indicators: KPIs are helpful diagnostic metrics that have to do with the key drivers of ROI. These measures are most helpful to provide actionable optimization recommendations and to compare one event against another. Insight Measures: These fall into the category of insight are often event specific and less helpful for comparison between events. They provide planning teams with a level of visibility into how to plan the details of an experience, including factors such as creative messaging, layout, staffing, location and more. Integrate or Die: If your experiential marketing team is still thinking about e vents as stand-alone occurrences, positive ROI is highly unlikely. Why? Because live experiences are intensely costly on a cost-per-engagement basis and it is extremely difficult for a positive return to be accomplished based on a single engagement.—Ben Grossman, vice president, strategy director, Jack Morton Worldwide
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SHOPPER MARKETING
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NEW TECH, SOCIAL AND A PERSONAL TOUCH HELP BRANDS CONNECT WITH SHOPPERS IN STORE AND ONLINE BY PATRICIA ODELL el e c t i n g a b o ttl e of win e from th e hundreds of choices on shelves can be a dizzying experience for any consumer. And if they’re shopping in the $5 to $7 range, it becomes even more challenging to purchase a vintage that will actually taste good. To remedy that, Beringer and its agency Twin Oaks have come up with a solution—taste stations. This spring, the stations were installed in 1,000 Kroger stores across 20 states. A shopper decides on one of three varietals they think they might like, pulls a single-serve flavor strip from the station placed in front of the bottles and tastes the wine. It’s a sampling breakthrough in the complex and often overwhelming wine shopping experience that instills confidence in the shopper’s wine selection.
S
WINE TASTING “The launch of the taste stations is the result of a year-long campaign and delivers against such key research findings as 94% of
women running households say sampling gives them a better idea of a product than advertising and 83% of shoppers say that an item they’ve sampled has become a repeat purchase,” says Steve DeVore, managing director at Twin Oaks, which led concept development and design. “This could be a game changer.” Marketers have talked a lot about consumers’ desire to shop anywhere they want, when they want and on their own terms. These discussions, brainstorming sessions and conversations have manifested themselves into action in the form of new and different technology solutions marketers are working to build into their plans, like the Beringer taste strips. The shopper marketing standard—crunching consumer data to gain insights that lead to campaigns, communications and other marketing messages—is entering the modern era to advance shopper marketing efforts that impact consumers in real time, often using state-ofthe-art technologies. North Face has customers
Amazon’s Dash Button allows Amazon Prime members to reorder products like Tide with the touch of a button.
donning headsets for a virtualreality view of a rock-climbing experience or base-jumping. Marriott offers the same for viewers to transport themselves to hotels in London or Hawaii for a tour. VR technology is growing as a method for retailers, and others, to drive sales and to offer an exciting or educational experience.
PRESS HERE In another innovation that
could change the way shoppers’ purchase regularly used household items, Amazon’s new Dash Button allows Amazon Prime members to easily and quickly reorder products with the touch of a button. The button is programmed to order, say Tide laundry detergent or Maxwell House coffee. It can be attached to the washing machine with reusable adhesive or hung near the coffee brewer. When the bottle
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LOOK AT THIS Another major retailer using technology to enhance the real-time shopper marketing experience is Neiman Marcus. Earlier this year, some stores began testing a cutting-edge
technology from Intel called “Memor yMirror” in smart dressing rooms. The platform captures and augments the experience of trying on and buying fashion apparel. The MemoryMirror is a full-body mirror that, by using simple body gestures or the mobile app, shoppers control to see 360-degree back and side views in new outfits. The platform remembers what the shopper tried on and can show
prices. It went the next step with its Savings Catcher grocery savings app. The app is designed to take the guesswork out of whether the Sony TV the customer is buying could actually be purchased at Best Buy for a lower price. The customer uses the app to take a picture of the barcode on the product or types in the receipt number. If Savings Catcher finds a lower advertised price, the customer gets the savings on a Walmart e-card.
Beringer rolled out taste stations in 1,000 Kroger stores this spring to help consumers feel more confident about their wine selection.
the shopper what the same dress would look like in multiple colors without even leaving the dressing room. “There’s nothing worse than standing in the dressing room with the wrong size or wrong color and having to get redressed and go find the right size,” Moser says. “Now shoppers have the ability to go in and try on a little black dress and instantly see how its looks in blue, red or green,” Moser says. “At the same time, socially they can send the pictures out to friends and family networks to crowd source what looks best without ever leaving the dressing room.” Mobile apps have also come to the forefront in delivering more personalized in-store shopping experiences. Walmart has had to look deep into its shopper marketing philosophy to ensure its customers can count on and reinforce what the brand already stands for to most Americans—everyday low
“This is important because when you think about someone like Walmart—with wide brand awareness and equity with low prices—they still felt it was necessary to develop this app,” Moser says. “It shows how customers are digging in and if you can close them quicker and remove all doubt, that’s what Walmart is looking to do.”
IT’S PERSONAL Introduced in 2013, Apple’s iBeacon technology is being used by brands to locate consumers and serve up coupons and other offers when they are in close proximity to a store or restaurant. More and more marketers are using the technology to drive in-store traffic. In some Georgia locations, McDonald’s used beacons to push deals to customers, bumping sales of the McChicken Sandwich up 8% and Chicken McNuggets up 7.5%, Forbes reported in December. Also last year, Lord &
Taylor used location technology and gamification to push coupons out to people close to its stores. People who were actually prompted to stop in the store received a digital scratch-off coupon for up to 25% off a purchase. In stores, it used iBeacon technology to alert smartphone users of offers on brands in specific departments like Michael Kors. The targeting can be so specific as to deliver a specific hair-care product to combat the frizzies on a day when the weather will be humid or rainy. A big-box home improvement retailer can deliver messages about snow blowers and generators as a winter storm approaches. This real-time marketing and consumer information gathering can provide personalized, one-to-one marketing that drives home a message based on the weather. “Brands are focused on how to meet the constant cravings of the shopper,” Moser says. “They can’t just put out the benefits and attributes of the products anymore. It has to be authentic and the challenge is how to do that.” Apps are also being developed to help retail sales associates improve the customer experience in real time. A suite of apps developed for retailers from IBM and Apple, called the Store Associate Suite, are designed to transform the in-store retail experience for the customer. The Sales Assist App puts an enterprise level of customer intelligence into retail associates’ hands. The idea behind the app is to give associates resources to provide a more personal—and personalized—experience, such as telling a shopper whether items are in stock or to suggest other items. The app uses real-time intelligence, displayed on a tablet, to direct associates to customers and allow them to provide product, inventory availability and location information, as well as personalized offers based on historical patterns and profile data.
SHOPPER MARKETING
of Tide or coffee runs low, a push of the button places an order, which arrives within days. The same goes for toilet paper, coffee and bottles of water or other favorite household items. Some of the brands participating include Maxwell House, Glad, Izzie, Tide, Cottonelle, Bounty and Smart Water. For marketers, the buttons are the epitome of real-time, data-driven marketing and offer myriad benefits including building loyalty, a plethora of customer insights and data, as well as an intimate, personalized experience for the customer. But not everyone thinks shopper marketing is going the way of the Dash Button. “The Dash Button makes sense for, say, routine low engagement items like doggy potty pads—when you have to reorder, the button remembers the brand, pack count and size,” says Laura Moser, senior vice president, shopper marketing practice lead, North America, Momentum. “At the same time, the buttons are dangerous. You’re really hooked into a brand and that takes the fun out of shopping anywhere, anytime and on your own terms, which is the primary desire of shoppers today.” Time will tell whether consumers latch on to the Dash Button, but Amazon is banking on consumers need for convenience. “What Amazon is saying is that they believe that convenience is so critical to shoppers that they’re willing to dismiss all other product possibilities to have a Tide button on their washer,” Moser says. “I don’t agree that that is the case, maybe with a few small categories. I don’t think it will have mass acceptance. Amazon is putting a stake in the ground to try and trump experience and variety.”
B2B SOCIAL
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GETTINGSTRATEGIC B2B MARKETERS GET MORE SOPHISTICATED IN THEIR SOCIAL PLANNING BY BETH NEGUS VIVEIROS
T
he days of B2B marketers thinking that social is something best left to their B2C brethren are long gone. Today, B2B marketers are approaching social more strategically than in the past, creating concise and compelling content that is mobile friendly. “More of the buyers in B2B are younger than people thought and marketers are catching up to that,” says Lisa Abbatiello, CEO of Leo Burnett Business. “Millennials are online and they’re doing their research in social media on their phone, so you need to be mobile.” As in B2C, B2B users and influ-
encers can be the best champions of a brand in social media, Abbatiello says. B2B brands are developing stories in formats like video that can be edited and distributed in a variety of social channels to reach the widest audience possible. “If you really want engagement, B2B social creative needs to be more visual,” she notes, noting that being concise and creating an emotional connection is essential. “Video allows you to tell a story not just in words, but in sight, sound and motion.” “Social is incredibly important across all B2B verticals,” agrees
Ted Kohnen, CMO, Americas, Stein IAS. “We’re even starting to see more brands come to us asking how we do social in a highly regulated space.”
GOING BOTH WAYS Social is all about creating two-way communications, says Kohnen, and that means targeting audiences when they are in a receptive mindset. Where that is exactly depends on your target market. For some, that could be Facebook, while others might be more inclined to start a conversation on Twitter. Periscope, which enables real-
time video on Twitter, could be a huge game changer for brands wanting to create an experience and amplify their reach beyond the confines of an event. Brands can also create their own social media ecosystems and build their own community. A great example of this is Adobe and CMO.com, notes Kohnen. “I think we’re going to see more purpose built social platforms develop,” says Kohnen, noting there could be localized elements, such as networks for New Yorkbased CMOs. “Micro communities will be the next frontier in B2B social networking.”
WWW.CHIEFMARKETER.COM » SUMMER 2015 » 23
into user-generated content.” Paid social is becoming a bigger and bigger factor for B2B brands looking to cut through the clutter. “There’s so much noise out there, and you need to break through and get the audience’s attention,” he says. “They’re being deluged and paid social can help you get the visibility you need.”
BY THE NUMBERS The recent Brandwatch B2B Social Media Report showed that 76% of B2B brands have at least one Twitter or Facebook account, with 47,023 Twitter followers and 211,872 Facebook likes on average. Over 5 million social mentions were recorded in a two-month period for these brands.
complaints mentioned on social about these brands during that same period, only one percent received a response. Which B2B verticals are doing the best in social? Business and software brands are in the lead, compromising half of all B2B social conversations. Aerospace comprised about 14% of
TAKE A VERTICAL TURN THE BENEFITS OF TARGETED PROFESSIONAL SOCIAL NETWORKS Vertical social networks that target a specific professional niche can be a great way for buyers and sellers to connect and start a conversation. Jay Hallberg, founder/CEO, Spiceworks, estimates there are now over 50 vertical networks for a variety of industries, such as SERMO for doctors, or Edmodo for educators. “They’re disrupting the traditional methods of reaching these audiences.” Spiceworks is a vertical social network for IT pros founded in 2006. The community, which features a wide range of content including how-tos and product reviews, gives IT pros a place to interact and fosters connections that often extend offline. “IT can be a lonely profession,” says Hallberg. “If you’re the IT guy for 100 lawyers, chances are you’re not hanging out with your co-workers, because you might not have much in common.” Marketers wanting to connect with their target audiences via these networks need to remember that you can’t go in with a traditional lead-gen mentality. “You can’t just use the campaigns you use in other channels,” he says, because that won’t resonate in social. “You’ll get thrashed if you make a sales pitch.” On Spiceworks, Hallberg says vendors that bring real technical know-how and value to the conversation succeed. “People will take good mental notes [of what you say] and remember that for later. The right technical experts can really build trust and brand affinity.”—BNV
media,” he says. “People want to know who the thought leader is behind what a brand is saying— not having that level of personalization is a missed opportunity.” For brands that don’t necessarily have a “rock star” level figure associated with their company as a spokesperson, sharing content on venues like LinkedIn Pulse can be extremely helpful. And of course, content that speaks to your audience’s needs and pain points can be particularly good for generating a dialogue, says Kohnen. Inspired by a client’s recruitment talent index, Stein IAS launched a B2B digital marketing maturity index to help companies benchmark where they stand. To get a conversation going, continually ask questions, Kohnen urges. “Poll your community and engage them in a dialogue. Tap
B2B brands are judging the success of their social expenditures in a variety of ways. Some see social as merely a way to engage the audience and share content, while others view it as an integral lead-gen channel, notes Kohnen. “B2B marketers need to optimize their social spending, so paid social is here to stay,” agrees Brian Quijano, director of product management and marketing, Adobe Social. “Of course, there isn’t a clear playbook right now—the biggest mistake a marketer can make is not testing.” In the past, marketing organizations were more siloed organizations. These silos are starting to come together, says Quijano, and organizations are looking for more cohesive metrics to gauge the success of their social spending, including engagement and natural conversion.
But one of the biggest surprises in the report was that 42% of the leading B2B brands were currently inactive in social media, says Phillip Agnew, community manager, Brandwatch. “That’s a huge problem,” says Agnew. “B2B customers expect a holistic, engaged experience and you have to have a place to respond to them.” Not surprisingly, the number of B2B brands posting from multiple accounts was 16% higher on Twitter than on Facebook. U.S. software brands had the highest average amount of Twitter accounts, 9.1, while industrial tech brands in the U.K. had the lowest average, at 0.4. In the report, Brandwatch recorded over 75,000 mentions that signaled an intent to purchase over the course of a year. Of the more than 5,000 customer
all mentions, while medical and energy each own 8%. “They’re getting a great audience for their brands, says Agnew, noting big name B2B software brands average over a quarter million followers for their main social accounts. These companies are also posting more frequently—software brands are posting to social on average 38 times per day, more than four times the general B2B average of 7.7 posts. IBM was the most mentioned B2B brand in social media in over 100 countries. In oil rich countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, energy brands like ExxonMobil, BP and Chevron dominated conversations. Where are B2B social conversations happening? Primarily on Twitter, according to Brandwatch’s report.
B2B SOCIAL
But no matter where you choose to engage, it is key to make that engagement a personal thing. “In social, it’s about the connection—if a brand is communicating and you don’t know who the individual [that is speaking is], all people are doing is engaging with a logo— and that’s not the ethos of social
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WWW.CHIEFMARKETER.COM » SUMMER 2015 » 25
B2B DIRECT MAIL AND CATALOGS STAY RELEVANT WITH INCREASED TARGETING By Beth Negus Viveiros
B2B marketers need to connect with prospects as early as p o s si b l e i n t h e d e c i si o n making process. Making direct mail an integral part of their multichannel contact strategy can help companies inf luence customers, build brand presence and create a comprehensive strateg y to close the sale. “There’s less clutter in the inbox, so direct mail is trendy again—and it’s working,” says Grant Johnson , chief measurable marketing officer of Bro o kf i el d , WI-b ased B2B agency Responsor y. “Using direct mail with the right lists and segmentation can warm people up and drive them to digital channels, giving you a tremendous lift.” “Usage is going up,” agrees Dick Goldsmith, president of direct mail consultancy The Horah Group. “I don’t think that the postage increase at end of May will hurt direct mail or catalog usage in B2B. It’s part of a strong multichannel program, and a good way to reach people who delete emails and texts.” Today, direct mail done right has an aura of being unique and special, particularly to younger recipients, Goldsmith notes. “People still find a lot of value in mail.” “We see people going back to mail,” adds Jeff Hopp, vice president of sales and market-
ing, Ripon Printers. “Runs are shorter and more targeted.” “B2B marketers are targeting a more focused campaign base, using direct mail to tie channels together and build a cohesive message,” says Grant Miller, vice president, global strategic product development, Pitney Bowes. “They’re moving away from a mass market approach and delivering campaigns in a personalized fashion, weaving the message through multiple communication vehicles.”
their copy to address each constituent’s needs. “The CEO has a different
the CIO will want to know how it will integrate with their existing systems.” S m a l l e r m o re t a rg e t e d data-driven direct mail campaigns are definitely the trend, says Pitney Bowes’ Miller, noting that relevancy to the target audience’s needs is essential. “ You need a strong call to action to get the dialogue going,” he says. “It’s all about weaving your message through multiple channels. Give people multiple ways to get engaged and understand their communications preferences. Don’t miss an opportunity.” Many B2B marketers for-
"We'll always continue to optimize our mail plan. We're seeing too many matchbacks between our online and offline marketing with attribution models."—Robert Cameron, New Pig TIMING IS EVERYTHING The key, of course, is to hit people when they are making their buying decisions. B2B exp enditures are typically a considered purchase that involves multiple decision makers. This, says Johnson, means marketers must adjust
set of responsibilities and concerns than the CMO or the CIO, so consider keeping the same creative look and theme [to your pieces], but vary the copy to suit the person you’re trying to reach,” says Johnson. The CEO wants to know how [what you’re selling] will impact the bottom line, while
get that without the right lists, even the best mail package in the world won’t perform. “Understand your existing customers,” says Johnson. “Who is buying from you? What titles do they have? What is their buying process? Profile and model based on what you’ve had success with.” Continued on page 26
B2B DIRECT MAIL
Changing with the Times
B2B DIRECT MAIL
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Continued from page 25 Another thing you can file under “Direct Marketing 101” is making sure that you give your target a strong call to action. “Give them a reason to take that next step,” says Johnson. “ Why should they respond? People hate to be sold to, but they love to buy. You need to show them the benefits of your product.” In its own direct mail efforts, Ripon uses a three-part prospecting program to generate awareness before a sales call. The recipient might have never heard of Ripon before receiving the mailing, says Hopp, so it helps to get them to take the call. Email supplements the direct mail efforts, with enewsletters sharing industry news and current promotions. “Receiving something in the mail still drives action,” he notes. “Direct mail has always been great for driving traffic,” agrees Goldsmith. “I can’t imagine having a catalog today without URLs.”
NEW PIG’S SQUEAL B2B cataloger New Pig, which markets supplies and equipment for cleaning up industrial leaks and spills, utilizes URLs heavily in its 500+ page annual “Pigalog,” says Robert Cameron, marketing director. The annual mammoth book comes out in January, and circulation has actually gone up in recent years, as the company has done more modeling to expand its target audience of industrial facilities, manufacturing plants, auto repair centers—“ w here ver someone might have a spill,” he says. Over the years, the content of the catalog—which is also available digitally at NewPig. com—has been supplemented to include more information about how the products can be used, to help customers make decisions. “We’re featuring selection
guides to help point the customer in the right direction, and we’re also working more and more on branding, with funny images to promote the ‘pigginess’ of New Pig, as well as company news,” says Cameron. Monthly 132-page catalogs are also mailed to active and recently inactive customers, and a 68-page book is used to target prospects and inactive segments. A tabloid version also goes out twice a year with updates. With all the touches that go into making a sale today, the age-old question of attribution and quantifying catalog or direct ROI hasn’t gotten any easier, Cameron admits. “We’re a multichannel marketer, and we market many different ways, so we group marketing touches together and then look at ROI.” I t c a n b e t r i c k y. F o r example, he says, if you look at new customers coming in through search, 70% of those
customers received a New Pig catalog. “We can’t measure the way we used to—catalogs need to adjust their metrics or they won’t optimize their marketing spend.” New Pig has spent the last year and a half building a new marketing database, enabling it to roll out more integrated marketing campaigns and do things like coordinating email blasts with catalog mailings. “We didn’t have the capability to do that until now.” Despite the increase in online marketing efforts, catalogs will likely always be a part of New Pig’s strategy. “ We’ ll always continue to optimize our mail plan with the marketing database and better models,” says Cameron. “I could see where perhaps we might mail less into certain segments, but we’re seeing too many matchbacks between our online and offline marketing with attribution models.”
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Fun with Formats WHAT WILL WORK BEST FOR YOU IN THE MAILBOX? Do you go small and efficient? Or do you go big or go home? There’s a number of factors that come into play when deciding which direct mail format makes the most sense for your B2B campaign. When it wanted to launch its BEACON advanced metering analytics product, Badger Meter—a maker of liquid flow measurement tools—knew it wanted to make a big impression in the market. It turned to Responsory to develop a threedimensional direct mail package, which connected with a corresponding landing page as the call to action to engage
C-level executives. “It served to energize and focus our salespeople to go
pitch BEACON,” says Judson Luke, integrated marketing services manager, Badger Meter.
How much information you need to get across in your mailing also influences whether a less expensive—but still effective—format such as a selfmailer is the route for you. If you do opt for a selfmailer, make sure you put your offer on both sides, especially next to the recipient’s name and address, advises Dick Goldsmith, president, The Horah Group. “If you don’t, you’re wasting real estate,” he says. “If a selfmailer doesn’t grab someone immediately, it will go right into the trash. You need to get people’s attention.”—BNV
Print and Personalization Go Together Like Sugar and Spice. BtoB consumers respond to communications that speak directly to them. That’s because personalization – especially complex print personalization – deepens the footprint in the brain. But you need to get past Personalization 101 if you want to achieve big results. We’re savvy direct mail and catalog printers with a lot of online smarts. Let us help you apply advanced personalization strategies to your integrated print and multichannel BtoB campaigns. We’ll show you how to lift your performance levels off the charts. Order our white paper, 5 Quick Tips for Achieving Personalization 2.0, at www.riponprinters.com/0515.
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CRM
C’MON, GET HAPPY CRM SOLUTIONS TO CREATE HARMONIOUS CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS By Patrick Gorman
Customer relationship management solutions are an essential hub for marketers trying to create more relevant, personalized and lasting relationships. “Marketers for years have really ignored the customer service part of the business— average handling time tended to be the primary metric for that. A good chunk of retention issues are directly related to customer service, and it’s marketers who end up dealing with retention issues,” says Ed Burek, product director at Pegasystems. “You really need to look across those channels and treat service as part of your customer journey. We see sales, service and marketing as driving customer engagement, and that’s what CRM is about. Those are not separate things,” More and more, chief experience officers and vice presidents of customer service are reporting directly to the CEO or CMO, he says. “There’s more and more of a fixation on customer engagement because of the fickleness of customers. Organizations are looking at that lifetime customer value and need to know what to do.”
ACQUISITION CRM is the key to bringing that to life— combining CRM technology and big data and traditional channels. “When you start to connect those pieces together, you’re able to make those predictive
decisions in a much smarter way. Until you do that, you do not have a 360-degree view of the customer. You’ve only got half of it if it’s just digital,” Burek says. Integrating data from a CRM platform, such as Salesforce, into acquisition campaigns is an important capability that new CRM solutions have to offer marketing teams.
online is a big trend.” For example, for a kitchen appliance brand that sells online but does a majority of business in a brick-and-mortar showroom, to close the loop and optimize what’s driving sales and qualified leads and feed that data back into acquisition campaigns based on what’s really working is a big deal. “We’re now extending that beyond ecommerce conversions into the offline world and trying to feed that data into CRM and acquisition campaigns,” Faris says.
SOCIAL MEDIA AND CRM
“If you’re an ecommerce brand, it’s really straightforward to measure the success of a digital advertising campaign based off of conversion data,” says John Faris, vice president of cross channel marketing, Red Door Interactive. “But when you get into the situation that a lot of brands are in, even in the B2C space, they’re doing lead gen that ultimately is driving conversions online, either through a retailer or an independent dealer or a salesperson. Tracking that whole process end to end and being able to attribute offline conversions to a campaign or a series of campaigns that drove that traffic initially
How can marketers bring CRM social and email together? First, make sure that you’re cross-pollenating your social followers and your email list. “It can be as simple as asking your social followers to sign up for emails and letting them know that they’re going to get something different on email than they’re going to get on the social channel and vice versa, letting the email list know about your social offering and the value there,” says Faris. Social sign-on technology such as Janrain allows website and mobile visitors to easily register and log in with their existing social and email IDs, and can improve registration rates by 50% while opening the door to collecting rich permission-based customer profile data.
TECHNOLOGY
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TECHNOLOGY
AUTOMATION
OPTIMIZING THE LIFECYCLE LEVERAGING MARKETING AUTOMATION TO SEGMENT AND BUILD MORE INTELLIGENT CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS A recent study shows that marketers are ready and able to take ownership of customer lifecycle management with marketing automation and other tech solutions. “We hear it more and more—CIOs need to get friendly with marketing departments because there is going to be a lot of money spent in this area in the future,” says Atri Chatterjee, CMO, Act-On Software, which conducted the study with Gleanster Research. The study showed that all responding marketers agreed that there is a customer lifecycle and that marketers should have some role throughout that entire time. Eight out of 10 marketers, however, feel they only have a peripheral role in this lifecycle from prospect to loyal customer. Automation allows marketers to better manage the customer relationship and lifecycle from beginning to end. “Selling something to an existing customer is six times easier than going out and finding a new customer,” Chatterjee says. “Automation can help identify what types of customers you already have, different segments of customers and how they are segmented by industry, behavioral and propensity.” But how can a marketer take all of this information and use it to interact with existing customers? When marketers leverage automation techniques around audience segmentation, profiling and personalization, it allows them to interact and engage customers in a different way because of things they know about them. Through marketing automation tech, marketers have the capability to do it effectively right now. Today, marketers are looking at automation from a solution standpoint, but also from a much broader perspective. Top performers polled in the Gleanster study (those from successful companies with high customer satisfaction ratings) made up two percent of responders. “If you look at the top performing customers, some interesting things stand out. One is how they plan. Top performers were likely to have objectives tied to the entire customer lifecycle that can be easily man-
aged through automation, such as retention, customer satisfaction, as opposed to focusing only on finding new leads and closing new business,” says Chatterjee. Top performers are spending more than 50% of their budget on retention and expansion technology versus non-top performers, according to Gleanster’s research. They also used personalization techniques in their campaigns 75% more often than lower performers.
“They were looking at profiles and personalizing messages based on what customers were doing and their specific profile information. They were using things like segmentation much more than the average folks. So in addition to the technology, it really starts with planning and knowhow and using the technology to achieve that,” Chatterjee says. Top performing marketing departments are also using metrics more often. Almost two-thirds of the marketing decisions that top performers are making are based on metrics, not based on non-metric criteria, according to Gleanster.
NEW SOLUTIONS Marketing automation has been helping marketers target customers based on personal and demographic information for some time, but now it’s allowing them to target based on technological data. HG Data is now concentrating on a new type of automation focused on targeting by installed technologies, or knowing what hardware and software technologies are being used by companies before reaching out to them for marketing or demand gen-
eration purposes. This kind of solution is a new automation benefit for B2B tech companies looking to find potential customers. “By taking a big data-style algorithmic approach to building these datasets, it has allowed bigger, more detailed datasets to be created and allows customers to target their outreach knowing what the incumbent technologies are in place,” says Mark Godly, chief revenue officer, HG Data. While this kind of data is interesting for marketers to know, it needs to be actionable and consumable in order for teams to take advantage of it. “Building automation solutions in this space that can fit into marketers’ tool kits is the key. The ‘spray and pray’ approach has been replaced by marketing automation. People bought marketing automation platforms and turned them into spam cannons and thought people would be beating a path to their door. Now, marketers are a lot more intelligent with their outreach,” Godly says. This external content (or external data) doesn’t displace any of the existing technologies marketers have in place, it allows them to adjust messages to resonate more effectively with the targeted audience through automation. “The pendulum is swinging back to a more targeted approach using third-party content to direct that targeting,” says Godly, noting that the average CMO usually doesn’t have the domain expertise or the time to be making sense of huge amounts of raw data elements. “That’s what we’re spending an enormous amount of time on—making it digestible, to point out the alerts and changes in the dataset and what is the most actionable, usable information at a particular point in time. So instead of presenting marketers with a 2.5GB dataset via an FTP and saying good luck with it, we’re distilling it down to what a person needs within their system of record and marrying it to that system. It’s about us fitting into the workflow and systems and demand gen processes of our clients, as opposed to expecting them to change to add us to the mix.” —PG
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TECHNOLOGY
ROI DASHBOARDS
BY THE DASHBOARD LIGHT IDEAS FOR CREATING MARKETING PARADISE BY TRACKING METRICS FROM MULTIPLE CHANNELS ROI dashboard solutions are providing marketers with real-time updates on their key metrics across multiple channels, but there are challenges and potential missteps that marketing teams need to keep in mind. “What makes a dashboard stop being useful is when it stops being relevant, because marketing changes so frequently,” says Mychelle Mollot, CMO, Klipfolio. In order to get the most value from dashboards, marketers must be able to easily access information and be able to customize and change things around themselves to fit their organization’s needs. “It’s best to assign a smart analyst or operations person who is going to own it like they own a Marketo or a HubSpot solution for automation and keep it fresh, relevant and useful,” Mollot says. ROI dashboard solutions also automate many functions for marketers. “Let’s say there’s a metric that they want to look at on social platforms, such as their number of followers. Tools today are automating that data for them, and it’s one click to add it to a dashboard. I don’t think marketers have been keeping up with the evolution in dashboarding as much as they should be, because it has evolved and gotten so much easier. Now, most of the data is coming from external data
sources—not just social, but all of the cloud-based solutions,” Mollot says. Market ers of t en try to house too much information on a dashboard—and that can be confusing and hides the high-value information a marketing team needs. “A good rule of thumb is asking if someone can take an action on the information,” says Mollot. “If the answer is no, then it doesn’t belong on a dashboard. It might belong on a report or an analysis, but everything on a dashboard should be there because someone is going to take an action on it.” Keeping the most pertinent, usable information possible on a dashboard is the recipe for success, she notes. “Dashboards that fail include metrics that change only once a quarter. They don’t belong on the same dashboard as something that changes constantly.” Different roles within a marketing organization require unique dashboard solutions. “A dashboard should be built for a specific role. You shouldn’t have a dashboard for a web person that is going to be used by the CMO. The CMO may want to look at that detailed
web dashboard in a review with the web team, but on a dayto-day basis, the web team has a dashboard that they are going to track their success against. When people mix roles in their dashboards, that’s where they fail,” Mollot says. When planning a dashboard, think of the audience and the latency of the data the team member using it will need to access. “I have dashboards that are operational that I look at every day, and then I have dashboards that I look at monthly, so I can see month-over-month performance,” Mollot says. Posting key dashboard metrics up on a public big screen monitor in the office gives the entire organization has a sense of how certain areas are performing in real time. “It creates a shared purpose and a shared goal. We are seeing a lot of marketing departments do that,” she says. “It’s also positive reinforcement—you can have the metrics go red, green or yellow based on performance. It creates an extra sense of purpose and it can be extremely motivational.”—Patrick Gorman
PERSONALIZATION
CONNECTING WITH INDIVIDUALS TECH SOLUTIONS TO BREAK DOWN DATA SILOS AND DELIVER RELEVANT, TARGETED MESSAGING Personalization is all about delivering unique experiences to customers based on their individual preferences, behaviors and history. Doing this well is driven by the quality of a marketer’s consumer data and their ability to use it effectively.
Technology solutions focused on helping marketers get personal with consumers are designed to sort through those data silos and get relevant, personalized messages in front of the right people at the right time. Whether it’s connecting with consumers
via digital channels or mobile devices, or gauging their interests via social and reacting to data in real time, personalization is evolving quickly. Smart marketers need to keep on top of the trends or risk being left behind. “Personalization doesn’t happen magicalContinued on page 34
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TECHNOLOGY
Continued from page 32 ly—it’s a craft, it’s a lot of hard work and it needs to be driven from the top down,” says Stefan Koenig, CEO/cofounder, Hull.
PERSONAL TAILORING Personalized marketing efforts need to provide consumers with relevant content and messaging tailored specifically to their needs, and many campaigns don’t hit the mark. “Personalization is leaving customers numb, and that’s what we’re hearing from marketers—that they’re not connecting with customers through many of the more recent uses of personalization and customized experiences, because it’s still very much segment focused, and doesn’t really take into account the individual’s needs,” says Jenne Barbour, solutions strategist with Teradata. Marketers who want to succeed at personalization must get down to an individual level, and that requires a true picture of the complete customer experience. “It’s [looking] across all silos, wherever the customer information may reside in your enterprise and bringing it together into the digital ecosystem and understanding the individual and her other interests when she’s out across other properties, because that informs the individual level of relevance as well,” Barbour says. “Marketers want to break down the silos of the different touch points of the multichannel experience,” agrees Clint Poole, vice president, marketing, Lionbridge. The biggest challenge is that there are different systems for all of these touch points, which can mean different providers, agencies and internal teams to operate them. “You have this highly complex, fragmented ecosystem of providers and platforms, so what has evolved is custom systems integration. A lot of people are creating ad hoc, customized workflows between systems,” Poole says. While new cloud platforms from Oracle and Adobe can break down silos and connect multiple digital channels within one platform, most marketing teams are dealing with a number of tech solutions to manage their customer data and information. “Personalized experiences used to be delivered in one channel and were based on data from that channel—like displaying personalized product recommendations on a website based on a customer’s prior purchases on that site. Now we’re seeing personalization increasingly becoming multichannel and multi-device based,” says Kim Smith, senior vice president
of product, HelloWorld. Marketers are now taking web browsing data from one place, social media activities from another, purchase data from their POS system and location-based information and using a combination of the data to create richer and much more personalized experiences than before, Smith says. This is changing the way marketers do business. “I think personalization has created the need for a new type of marketer—one who has the skills to bridge IT, data science and digital marketing. It needs to be driven down from the CMO to teach marketers to become more data scientists. There is technology out there to help brands cover these areas but the problem is that a lot of them don’t have the skillset in house to use those tools to the max,” Koenig says.
GOING MOBILE Mobile devices are the most immediate way to communicate with customers as individuals, and finding their preferred method of mobile engagement is key for marketers moving forward. “A mobile app might not be the right thing. Simply ensuring that your website is mobile friendly could make more sense. Mobile is truly where everything is shifting, and marketers have a rich opportunity to interact at an individual customer through mobile,” Barbour says. It’s important for marketers to ensure there is relevance, transparency and trust around the information customers are sharing with brands, including what information is being used and how it is being used. “As long as you’re providing that relevance and an opportunity for customers to maintain control over what they’re sharing, the barrier to sharing more information is reduced,” says Barbour. “People become uncomfortable when marketers don’t provide the relevance that customers expect or when they abuse that privilege and sell the information.”
MEASUREMENT AND TESTING There are ways to test and measure the success of various personalization tactics by gathering data and gauging what works best without making a significant up-front investment in technology. If a brand doesn’t have extensive consumer profiles, they can begin by collecting one or two data points to get started on personalization. For example, simply collecting data on a
customer’s gender and what ZIP code they reside in can be used in a variety of ways. “They could be used to feature different products in marketing, promote different offers, highlight local store locations or tout different product benefits. Then A/B testing can allow the marketer to gauge the impact of personalization and really help them decide if investing in a more robust and thorough strategy makes sense for their business. They can start small, test, learn and grow from there,” Smith says. Marketers are also leveraging controlled group testing, measuring success with a group receiving personalized offers versus a group receiving standard offers and seeing how they perform, Poole says. “I’ve yet to hear from anyone where the personalized offer didn’t have a haigher return, but the challenge is that it requires analysis and planning that does reduce speed to market, so there is a balance between speed to market and personalization because the platforms aren’t quick and smart enough and we’re not agile enough as marketers yet to really nail both,” Poole says.
SOCIAL AND REAL TIME Marketing to consumers in real time based on their actions within social media and other digital channels is not quite a reality just yet, but tech solutions are almost there. When marketers are able to integrate their legacy customer data with CRM and customer data tools with real-time data from social behavior and other digital platforms to the action platforms (the pushing of email, digital display and social response), that’s when real-time marketing personalization will be within reach. “I think there are platforms that are very close to enabling that. Real-time personalization will start to become the phrase, rather than just personalization. You’re going to see the cycles shorten and the accuracy of personalization capabilities improve and the ROI will be a lot stronger,” Poole says. Information from social media will be a key ingredient to personalized marketing campaigns moving forward. “Social helps marketers round out their understanding of the individual customer, [looking at] not just the data that they would normally collect or have self-reported from customers, but what’s really important to them. Social allows marketers insight into the things that are really important to customers, what they’re interested in,” Barbour says. Marketers need to be able to provide reasons why they’re asking for a high level of access while also providing value against it, so transparency and trust are key. —PG
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THE LAST WORD
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CM 4X4 When it comes to marketing return on investment, what really matters? This issue, we asked four marketing pros for their thoughts on professional and personal ROI. Vital marketing investment this year Developing a customer portal.
A recent personal investment & the ROI My second oldest daughter’s wedding! Everyone sure seemed like they had a great time at the reception.
Based on the customer journey and multiple touches that occur, attribution is always a challenge.
Marketing automation to improve and move prospects throughout the funnel.
College tuition for my son. As he’s a freshman, it will take a few years to gauge the ROI of that purchase stream.
Top line revenue. ROI = revenue minus cost, divided by cost. Cost can include personnel salaries and bonuses, or just the cost of a channel.
The human factor. Different sales people have different levels of expertise and ability. It can be a great lead but there might not be chemistry between the rep and the prospect.
Increasing the digital marketing budget, in particular advertorials.
An 80 inch 4k/3D TV and all new stainless steel appliances in the kitchen. If Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy!
My team oversees monitoring, optimization, analytics and making sure we’re meeting KPIs. If customers are meeting their KPIs, we’ll actually make more money.
We’re very focused on measurability. Every trade show and campaign we do, we need to go back and prove ROI.
Our programmatic platform, and creating private marketplaces.
A Roomba! It’s incredible. It gets under the sofa, the beds and it gets all of the dog hair.
Key marketing ROI metric for your brand Total revenue and market share
Biggest ROI challenge
Real revenue and profit that can be attributed to marketing rather than vanity metrics.
It’s hard to gauge specific performance for opportunity generation from individual tactics using a well-integrated program.
Mark RENTSCHLER director of marketing, Makino
Warren SUKERNEK director of marketing, Triumvirate Environmental
Clint HUGHES VP marketing, MediGain
Rachel ALLGOOD SVP, marketing/consumer insights, Gamut, a Cox Media Co.
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