11.19.2009

10 Reasons Why Marketing Automation Fails [Manticore]

Im normally not a fan of vendor endorsements (although this will be my 2nd this week!), these guys are spot on. Its not rocket science but its still amazing how little process and measurement actually makes its way into today marketing departments.
Speak with you soon. DC

11.17.2009

My First Product Review – its a short one

My only qualification to review any software is exclusively as an end user. Yet with less than 7 days of use, I’m already an advocate of Xobni.

The tool is a simple, lightweight add-on to my work instance of Outlook, and simply put, this tool is slick for 3 reasons:

  1. At my fingertips and in a visible format, I can access threaded conversations from my top contacts (ie, Boss, Team Lead, Wife)

  2. Relevant files AND contact info are extracted and grouped so I don’t have to hunt and peck, open app then open file, DT search, etc

  3. I can quickly add highly relevant contacts to my LinkedIn and Twitter accounts

If you haven’t checked it out yet, I highly recommend it. Commercial versions are available, too.

Speak with you soon. DC

11.12.2009

Do You Believe?

CO2 debate roars on.
As a trained former environmental engineer, I think some data supports this, but clearly other data refute the trend.
As a trained finance professional, the investment opportunity is staggering, particularly given the hype and potential for short term gain.
As a practicing marketeer, XPLANE blew my doors off again.
Speak with you soon. DC

11.08.2009

Remarketing Math for Marketers

Ive been asked, "why remarket?" I say, "the math tells me to do so." Beyond the intuition - its cheaper to market to previously qualifed leads than to start cold - however, remarketing is most powerful if you have fairly decent control of your lead gen process and are comfortable with your base conversion metrics, especially lead -> opportunity -> sale.

For example, consider this baseline:
For a 60 day campaign, 100 leads are acquired for $100 ea (typical B2B), converting 10% to opportunity, which ultimately convert to 2 deals. If ASP is $25K, then the contribution margin for this campaign is $40K. CPL is $100 and CPO is $1K. A winner.

By remarketing to this same list, and assuming the same 10% opportunity conversion (which is fairly easy to do simply by offering a different CTA), the 9 additional opportunities deliver a whopping 47% CPO reduction to the campaign (CPO from $1K to $526)! Ive assumed the cost to email and revamp CTA are negligible, which they are! Will these 9 convert to additional deals? If so, watch your campaign contribution margin go through the roof with each successive remarketing event.

And without going into the heavy financial analysis, assume that remarketing also delivers more OPPORTUNITIES more quickly, so assuming a reasonable discount rate, the campaign ROI improvement becomes even more amazing.

Remarketing doesnt require heavy math or expensive technology. Like most effective things in marketing, it requires planning, testing, measuring, and improvement.

Speak with you soon. DC