Success in the attention economy was based upon the relevancy and importance of the information provided. Relevancy and importance of the information determined the amount of time spent reading information, frequency of visits and ultimately the number of opportunities to sell. Evolution of the attention economy was a must. As more information becomes available across a growing number of competing sources, then a scarcity of attention occurs and the opportunity to sell diminishes. Insightful marketers evolve their planning and activity away from the attention economy towards the engagement economy.
The Engagement Economy is about building personalized, authentic relationships that are supported by every component of the business to meet customer wants and expectations. It offers prospects and customers the opportunity to engage in a communication or meaningful relationship with the company. Contrary to some recent articles, the engagement economy is not a new concept. However, to truly engage prospects, there must be multiple levels of interaction committed to providing a unique customer experience.
Engagement can be driven by offering a prospect the ability to comment on the product, pricing, product life cycle or even offer new product concepts. Engagement can take the form of a user community that shares information or can be a contest related to either the product or the values of the company. Tesla allowing people to reserve the new Model 3 for a $1000 is an example of the Engagement Economy. The car is not available and the wait time is well beyond that of what would be considered normal. But the ability to get in line for such an innovative new product is exciting for many peop
le. How Tesla structures what follows will determine their understanding of the engagement economy and their success with such an audience.
Engagement is not something that is done once. Marketers that understand the need to develop longer term relationships and interactions will successfully exploit the opportunities presented in 2018.
Participation of prospects and customers in the activities of our marketing programs supports our ability to understand, appreciate, and sell to our target markets. It also makes our customer base stickier and thus more likely to remain members of our business ecosystem. Success in 2018 will depend upon how well we can apply the engagement economy concepts to corporate websites, marketing programs, and social media outlets such as LinkedIn, Twitte
r, Facebook, YouTube and others.
NEXT WEEK: Sales Channel Integration
Analyzing multivariate campaigns is not a simple process. The manipulation of multiple variables and measuring the effectiveness of the change requires a sample size sufficient to measure the number of variables or conditions applied to the campaign. It also requires the marketer to group the responses into meaningful categories that can be used to determine which alternative(s) are most effective.
Multivariate testing is often used in the design of websites. Together, the content, font, graphics, tone and layout of a webpage represent the brand and branding for a company. As a group the communicate the brand to visitors. A/B testing is not efficient when so many variables need to be tracked and the response is not “yes”, or “no”. Responses to webpage designs consider emotion, effectiveness of communication, tome of the information, casual verses professional, and on and on. Ultimately, the winning design is chosen because it delivers the best experience for the visitor and generates the best response. A/B Testing is performed on the winning design to incrementally improve its performance.
Multivariate testing can also be applied to email content, sales promotions, company collateral, surveys and much more. There are many forms of analysis with some more applicable than others depending upon the information collected, concerns to be addressed and database size. Wikipedia lists 17 different statistical models and while I like and trust statistics and quantifiable information, 17 is a lot.
Consider instead evaluating which techniques will be most effective based upon the available data and familiarity with specific analysis methods. It is very important to vary the type of analysis as there is no one silver bullet. Either one or more form of analysis such as multiple regression, discriminant, conjoint, factor or cluster analysis may be appropriate. Experience and skill are needed to make the best selection(s).
As this is clearly a subject too broad for a blog, might I suggest “Multivariate Data Analysis for Dummies” by Brad Swarbrick. It’s a good read. And for software to assist, I suggest evaluating the top rated Multivariate analysis products on Capterra.
In summary, don’t think of multivariate and A/B testing as opposites or that one should be favored over the other. They are complementary with each having a role to play on a successful marketing team. Each contributes to Marketing Excellence.
Sales Qualified Leads
The Marketing and sales funnel is most effective when buyers move from one buying phase to the next; inquiries to leads, leads to Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs), MQLs to Sales Qualified leads (SQLs) and SQLs to closed business.
Moving buyers through each phase requires more than cold calling, advertising or digital marketing alone. If the objective is to build robust and growing sales pipelines with sales qualified leads, then the information communicated must progress in depth and relevance as the buyers moves from the inquiry phase to purchasing. This is referred to as lead nurturing.
Lead nurturing requires a range of high quality, personalized content to be shared with the targeted market. Content should be created that is relevant for each level/member (users to the actual decision maker) of the buyer community to address concerns related to benefits, features, training, operations and ongoing support. When buyers are offered content that answers questions, confirms thoughts or expands their interest, the content is consumed. Consumed content becomes a part of the daily work discussions, meetings and can be even shared as part of the professional social media network. As content is shared within a social media network, new interest is generated for the company, solution or product. Content that attracts and holds the interest of qualified buyers establishes you as a valid vendor. Moreover, the greater the relevance of the content to the buyer’s needs and stage of the buying journey, the greater number of leads that will convert into prospects and prospects into sales.
The lead stages are as follows:
Raven Guru Marketing will transform your marketing strategies and campaigns into effective Inbound Marketing lead generation engines to increase the number of qualified leads, improve lead conversion to prospects and ultimately close/win more sales.
Read the Seven Steps to Marketing Excellence white paper to learn more and kick start your 2017 sales.Step Four – Branding and Brand Identity
Every business has a unique vision, strategy and business environment. These collectively define the expression of your brand and clarifies what you stand for so you can communicate your product to your audience in a way that resonates. Your brand identity is one of the most valuable assets of your business and needs to be crafted to authentically represent the business. Investing in building your brand and brand identity will help deliver your vision by differentiating you from the competition, developing a following and improving your bottom line. Your brand identity is about who you are – the product, solution or service, the quality and support you deliver to customers, and your value versus that of competitors.
Profitable companies have one thing in common. They have established themselves as a leader in their market by building a strong brand. A brand isn’t just what people can physically see in advertising and a logo but also consists of people’s perception of a company’s reputation and its customer service. For example: If the computer you sell is the fastest on the market, then that is a feature or fact about the product. Branding leverages that speed by creating messaging around the amount of work that can be performed or the amount of time saved per day by using a faster computer. Branding can highlight the aesthetics or intangibles of having the fastest computer such as making the owner feel better about his equipment and his company. Developing each of these into strong representations for your company will in turn provide you a successful brand identity in your industry.
While there are many attributes to consider when building a brand and brand identity, it is critical to develop a consistent presence, to be liked and to be trusted. Successful branding results in:
Branding enables your company to get referrals. Word of mouth referrals are the direct result of your company delivering a memorable experience with your customer.
Raven Guru will help build your vision into a recognizable brand that will leave a lasting impression for years to come.
]]>Step Two – Product
I got my start in marketing by way of Product Management and Product Marketing. It is important to understand that there is a difference between Product Management and Product Marketing but both functions work in close collaboration from product inception to delivery. So, I find Product Management and Marketing (PMM) needs to be closely intertwined with Engineering and the Marketing team to successfully deliver the specified product to the marketplace that meets the brand promise. PMM must be able to excel at strategy development and tactical execution. My top priority roles for a successful PMM team are:
PMM personnel need to understand the product, the marketplace and competitors. They also need to communicate the value of the product to assist marketing communications in developing collateral, videos, webinars, etc. Concluding with an overall product life cycle plan covering the initial launch through its evolution towards maturity. At which point, the product is either materially updated, replaced or discontinued.
Whether the product is a tangible item such as a phone, wearable tech, computer, or software or a less tangible item such as a service, the product benefits, features and cost need to be defined before marketing can communicate to the target markets. Without this understanding of the product and a clear set of value propositions then marketing will have difficulty marketing the product to perspective buyers. Surveys show that identifying and eliminating weak product ideas before product delivery result in companies having a greater likelihood of successful new products. Any misalignment between the product and the value expected by the buyer, will result in a poor experience, fewer referrals, potentially bad reviews, and ultimately disastrous results.
Raven Guru Marketing believes the pursuit of Marketing Excellence integrates the skills of PMM and the other marketing disciplines for a successful product rollout.]]>