As marketers we are always building and tweaking lead capture forms. Refining which and how much information to capture based on our percieved value of what we offer in return (whitepapers, free trials, etc.). Building lead capture forms in HTML is not particularly difficult, but unfortunatley HTML provides no standardized way to validate form fields (at least not until everyone is on HTML5 compliant browsers). Therefore, to enforce required fields on forms we must resort to JavaScript. Typically this requires the assistance of a JavaScript developer who must be re-engaged each time the form fields are tweaked. Not anymore.
Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category
The Last Mile : Required Fields for JavaScript Illiterati
Tuesday, August 10th, 2010Tracking the Effectiveness of your Banner Ads
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010I am only a few months into my new job here at LoopFuse, heading up their marketing team, and it has been full steam ahead with the exciting announcement of FreeView, the first and only free marketing automation solution. Being a previous user and advocate of LoopFuse, I found it easy to jump in feet first and start developing new marketing programs utilizing our own tool to create and track their successes.
As I continue to ramp up the marketing efforts here I wanted to share my experiences with everyone. Personally, I relate better to a product when I understand how I can use it to make my job easier on a daily basis. I am a marketing user just like you and I am going to discuss real-life use cases for using marketing automation in this post and future posts.
One of my first projects was to manage the launch of our new website and the messaging around it. The homepage was getting a makeover and one of the biggest changes was the addition of some scrolling banners. We wanted to get our audience’s attention with graphics that popped and content that was simple and to the point. Today we have four rotating banners.
Who is following your digital footprints?
Thursday, July 29th, 2010There is a natural trade-off that each of us makes everyday between convenience and privacy. You can drive through the toll booth and sit in line with everyone else waiting to deposit your anonymous quarters or you can drive through the SpeedPass lane at 80 MPH and have your wireless toll tag charge your credit card. For pragmatists, this decision is easy. But consider for a moment all of the information that has been generated about you and with whom that information may be shared.
Who (or more precisely which vehicle) was driving on which highway at what toll booth traveling in a given direction at an exact point in time. If the trip passes through multiple toll booths then a driver’s route, progress, and even his/her speed can be calculated. Applying analytical processes to all of the historical data for an individual allows us to generate a profile of the driver. For example, based on the time of day that the driver passes through certain tolls, educated guesses can be made about the location of his/her work. And remember, this data can be combined with the existing demographic data already on file to improve the accuracy of these guesses. For example, the driver’s home address is already on file for billing purposes. Using this home address services like Zillow.com can determine the cost of the home and therefore the driver’s likely household income. If that the driver goes through the airport toll road towards the airport on average twice a week and returns the next day and you might begin to suspect that this person works in sales or is an executive and travels extensively for short overnight trips to visit clients. With every data point collected this profile becomes more and more accurate; correcting false assumptions over time.
Of course, this kind of profiling can be used for many purposes, some mutually beneficial, some downright creepy. For example, the toll plaza could flash traffic warnings to you when you pass through based on your historical driving route. City planners could use the data to justify the installation of so-called “Lexus Lanes” based on segmentation of the income level of drivers on a particular highway. Or an unscrupulous individual could use this information to target homes for burglary when it appears the owner is out of town (remember the airport toll road). The possibilities are endless.
Online marketers are using a similar approach to profile their prospects in order to better measure level of interest and to segment and qualify prospects before handing them over to their sales department. Marketers who leverage this technology effectively can provide a more targeted and relevant evaluation and purchasing experience to prospects who truly show interest in their offerings and avoid annoying those who are “just browsing”.
Let’s review the kinds of information that marketers can collect online to build this profile:
Behavioral
The moment a visitor lands on my website, his/her browser is “tagged” with a unique ID that allows me to recognize him/her upon return visits to my site (or even across multiple websites depending on the situation). Now every click the visitor ever makes on my website(s) can be associated with his/her anonmyous profile.
Implicit
In addition to click stream data, the visitor’s web-browser shares certain information about his/her environment including his/her operating system, browser type, screen size (iPad anyone?), and IP-address.
Here is what YOUR browser is telling us about you:
3rd Party Data Enrichment
This IP-address can be used to help identify (with varying degrees of accuracy) both location and company affiliation of the visitor. The company affiliation is based on who actually owns the IP address assigned to the visitor’s machine. Consumers surfing from home will just show their ISP, but companies who are researching potential solutions from their corporate network will likely expose their company name just by viewing a webpage.
For example, this is what we have just learned from YOUR IP address :
Once a marketer is armed with a company name there are dozens of popular tools that can be used to enrich the data associated with that company including Google, Jigsaw, Hoovers, ZoomInfo, LinkedIn, etc. Also, location information can be used to personalize the web experience to highlight things that are geographically relevent to the visitor (relevant local events, locations near them, etc).
Demographic
Of course, the only way to get truly personal data is by trading something of value (whitepaper, free software, webinar, etc.) in exchange for unmasking the visitor’s anonymity. Every piece of data entered into a webform is linked to the prospect profile and is used in conjunction with the behavioral data and 3rd party data to construct a 360-degree view of that prospect that continually evolves as more data points are collected over time.
Email Interactions
Once the prospect is associated with an email address we send personalized email campaigns designed specifically for that prospect’s market segment and track every open, click, and forward of that email message by utilizing a combination of images and hyperlink rewriting.
The ease with which this data can be collected online and the power that marketing automation platforms like LoopFuse can provide to leverage this information creates an extremely compelling opportunity to move marketing from a “spray and pray” methodology to a highly targeted engagement model that treats each prospect as an individual. Of course, individual web surfers who are adamant about their anonymity must pay a “convenience tax” by disabling cookies in their browsers, disabling images in their email clients, using anonymous proxies for surfing, and using throw away email addresses when signing up for things. The same inconvenience tax that must be paid by sitting in line at a toll booth. Anonymity is not extinct online, but marketing automation technology has put it on the endangered species list.
Freemium and OpenSource Funnels
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010In my last blogpost titled “Why Free? Why Now?” I provided some background on the impetus and the reasoning behind LoopFuse’s move to provide a free marketing automation offering. It has been only three weeks since our launch of FreeView, but the response has already been overwhelming. One of the most interesting changes that comes with a move into a freemium model is the shape of the funnel. Over the past several years I’ve studied the funnels of dozens of companies and I’ve noticed that those companies based on freemium models (including opensource) show some very distinctive and interesting patterns.
The Mouth of the Funnel
The first distinctive feature of a freemium-based funnel is obviously that the funnel’s mouth becomes extremely large. Providing anything of significant value for free will attract a large number of people. The number of people attracted is directly related to the amount of value provided for free and inversely related to the “friction” in obtaining that value. For example, when Ben and Jerry’s offers a free ice-cream cone a line will form. But as the line grows the “friction” to obtain the free ice-cream becomes a disincentive for people who realize that waiting an hour in line for a $3 cone may not be worth the effort. However, if the free item were an iPhone instead of an ice-cream cone then the length of the line would naturally extend much farther as people weighed the value of their time against the inconvenience.
Freemium companies must not only ensure that their free offering provides significant value, but also that the “friction” required to obtain that value is minimized. For example what information must the prospect divulge about him/herself and/or his/her organization to access the free offering? What setup and configuration tasks must be completed? How aggressive is the push to migrate from the free offering to the paid upgrade? The value of the free offering minus the total friction required to obtain that value will directly drive the relative size of the earliest stages of the funnel. Of course, in order for people to consider a free offering they must be aware of it. While word-of-mouth is a key component of the freemium marketing strategy, there is still a very important role for traditional marketing to drive awareness.
Behavior-Driven Funnel Definition
The second distinctive feature of a freemium-based funnel is the segmentation of the funnel based on behavior. Traditionally the progression of a lead through the segments of the funnel has been based on external indicators such as registration, download of collateral, participation in webinars, product trial download, contacting sales for assistance, etc. However, due to the volume of leads being managed inside the funnel, a freemium model must provide a hyper-efficient means of measuring the progression of a lead towards purchase and must maintain a level of accuracy in that measurement to ensure that we are not overwhelming the sales team with unqualified leads. Therefore, the segments of the funnel may need to become more specialized based on data being collected directly from the usage statistics of the free offering. For example, in our own funnel, LoopFuse knows exactly how many users, leads, forms, lists, nurturing programs, reports, and campaigns are in use by every single FreeView user. These statistics are key criteria for the promotion of a lead inside of our own funnel segments. This type of integration is usually much easier with SaaS freemium models than with pure opensource models because the usage statistics are more readily available.
The Patient Sales Model
The third distinctive feature of a freemium-based funnel is the lack of momentum in the early stages of the funnel. In a former life I worked at an opensource company and we used to discuss the concept of the “patient sales model”. The concept was based on our observations that it often took YEARS before a free user was ready to purchase a premium upgrade. A user would download the software, become familiar with it’s capabilities and limitations, and it would become part of his/her default toolkit. At some point in the future he/she would pull out that software and would run into a limitation that could only be overcome by upgrading into a premium version. At this point the value proposition is clear to the purchaser, the friction of adoption is zero, and the prospect is usually ready to pay for the value they are receiving. However, there is no magic formula that will predict when this circumstance will present itself. Freemium models front-load the funnel with lots of users on the basis that eventually they will run into this situation. Also, traditional metrics such as days-to-close can become misleading in freemium models unless you start the clock at the point of opportunity creation rather than lead creation.
While the LoopFuse freemium offering (FreeView) is only a few weeks old, we can already see the momentum impact at the front of the funnel. We have already revised our internal funnel segmentation to better utilize the FreeView behavioral data to more accurately identify those prospects who are gaining the most value and are therefore more likely to pay. I am fascinated by the funnels of freemium and opensource companies and look forward to watching the evolution of our own funnel and the subtle patterns and idiosynchrasies we identify along the way. For a great in depth article on the “Fundamentals of a Volume Market Engine” I highly recommend reading Fred Holahan’s article on OpenSource Business Resource.
Welcome Cindy Ryan, Director of Marketing
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010I would like to welcome Cindy Ryan to the Loopfuse team. Cindy joins us as Director of Marketing at a time of rapid growth for our company especially with the recent launch of Loopfuse Freeview, the first and only freemium marketing automation offering. Without question, Cindy’s marketing experience and Loopfuse knowledge will be a huge asset both internally and externally. Specifically, Cindy led and executed marketing campaigns for JBoss (acquired by Redhat), a highly successful open source software company and where she worked with our founders, and led daily marketing operations for Joe McGonnell at Openspan using Loopfuse OneView. As a Loopfuse user, Cindy will be invaluable not only to Loopfuse internally but also to our prospects and customers by sharing her Loopfuse OneView experience to help them make marketing profitable within their own organizations. So if you are a Loopfuse prospect or customer, please expect to hear from Cindy on how she uses Loopfuse to drive opportunities and ultimately revenue.
Cindy, on behalf of the Loopfuse community, we’re glad you joined us to help transform the marketing automation industry.
The Value in Free Marketing Automation
Tuesday, July 6th, 2010
End the Status Quo in Marketing Automation
Last week marked a dramatic turning-point for us at LoopFuse and the general Marketing Automation sector, with the unveiling of our Free Marketing Automation offering, FreeView. The release of FreeView and a new low-cost, zero-risk pricing model, marks an almost year’s-worth of work in planning and infrastructure investment geared to accelerate the adoption of Marketing Automation.
The Value to Marketers
While most in the industry often reference a Forrester report claiming 5% penetration in the Marketing Automation sector, the unusual thing is that no one seems to wonder (publicly) why the rate of growth isn’t much higher given the value Marketing Automation provides.
So allow me to rain on the price-gouging parade. Many of our competitors would have you convinced that Marketing Automation is reserved for marketers with million-dollar budgets, dedicated staff to manage the tools, and a bus-load of expensive professional services representatives to “help” them manage it. “Oh, marketing automation is much too complex for you mere mortal marketers…”, the million-dollar-quota sales-rep claims. In many ways, our competitors are distorting the market by projecting their own enterprise-sales commission structure on to you. The model works for them, at the cost of the consumer (your arm, and your leg). In a market with single-digit penetration, and many competitors continuing to follow Eloqua in to the realm of pricing-out the masses, it is evident that many marketers are simply priced-out of the market. And so now the high price barrier to entry for marketers wanting to adopt marketing automation is lowered to ZERO.
The benefits to marketers under this innovative model are clear:
- Zero-Risk: Sign-up and use a full-featured marketing automation product for FREE. Forever.
- Easy-to-Use: A complete wizard-based user-interface will have you up-and-running in minutes, identifying high-quality leads, sending email campaigns, and tracking lead conversion rates.
- Help at your fingertips: Our comprehensive knowledge base and community site is backed by LoopFuse support staff and community members exchanging ideas and best-practice advice.
The value in “free, forever” to marketers is clear with a zero-risk, easy-to-use, supported, and proven product.
The Value to Partners
As individual marketers benefit from a free offering, so do our Partners. The benefits are actually much more clear to partners, as they are now able to fully-implement a customer for FREE and not have to worry about the product vendor affecting their pricing structure. To a Partner, the relationship becomes pure-profit, and not revenue-sharing, as our competitors would enforce.
Last week, the status-quo of distorting the market with overpriced products ended. Marketing Automation is now open to any and every marketer, to use it for Free Forever. No strings attached, no bait and switch, no credit cards required. Just Sign-up and you’re ready to go in minutes.
Thoughts on the announcement, by others:
The Most Interesting Marketer in the World
Friday, June 18th, 2010While you have all heard of the most Interesting Man in the World…..
Introducing
the
most Interesting Marketer in the World: http://bit.ly/b5OhIs; http://bit.ly/aWzGXc
The Future of Marketing Automation
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010Over the last couple of years, particularly in the marketing space, nothing has been hotter than the marketing automation space. The promise of doing more with less, speeding response times, and focusing sales efforts on the most likely prospects have held wide appeal during these lean times.
Looking to the future of the space, however, I think the near term promise is going to have less to do with the automation and more with the data capture. As digital begot social, and social continued to fuel the adoption of digital it cumulatively is changing the face of marketing.
When the current crop of marketing automation tools was built email marketing was pretty much the centerpiece of an online strategy. Connect an outbound email to eventual web site behavior and you really had something. Largely this really is no longer the case. Email is rapidly approaching extinction as an acquisition vehicle. Today you need more diversity in your mobile mix that equally represents web, search, email, display, social syndication, social engagement, and some cases mobile.
One of the most intriguing early features of marketing automation was the ability to spot and track the behavioral trends of customers. Steven Woods over at Eloqua did a great job of describing this in his book Digital Body Language. As digital volumes grow his perspective becomes more and more relevant. The challenge now lies in figuring out how to do this in the multi-channel, digital world.
The future of marketing, all marketing, lies in the ability to craft relevant offers to much smaller audiences. What will fuel this is the ability to capture integrated customer profiles that span all the relevant channels. Customers are sharing more data than ever before and the smart marketer will use that to inform their creative, improve their offers, and begin a dialog with their customer.
New Salesforce.com Plug-in Provides Sales Personnel with Real-Time Activity
Friday, April 23rd, 2010Earlier this week, we announced a new Salesforce.com Plug-in for Loopfuse OneView, our flagship SaaS offering. This new addition provides real-time activity information for Loopfuse customers on any lead or contact in their database, enabling salespeople to rapidly assess the quality of each sales lead at-a-glance. In short, we are helping sales teams focus on the most important, qualified leads and thus close deals faster by viewing information such as:
- The number of page views visited on the site
- The number of lead capture forms submitted
- The number of opens and clicks on all email marketing campaigns
This new tool is hosted on Salesforce.com’s Appexchange and can be accessed at here (note: you need to have a Loopfuse instance running and a free trial is available here).
