Marketers, are your ROI measurements on autopilot?

Adam Sharp — Tue, 14 May 2013 09:00:08 +0000

Short campaigns and long sales cycles – something is not adding up

A lesson in campaign planning for marketers is provided by CleverTouch Group MD, Adam Sharp.

Despite all the talk of being strategic, when it comes to measuring campaigns many marketers leave a lot to chance.

Research from SiriusDecisions found that for B2B CMO’s demonstrating ROI was their top concern, yet fewer than 20 per cent say they have the ability to measure it. (Forbes)

To me this is hardly surprising as often marketers try to claim ROI on a campaign that is shorter than the average buying cycle. For example, if the campaign is two months long but the average buying cycle is say eight months, then there is only a 25 per cent chance that the successful outcome of a customer saying yes can only be attributed to the campaign.

To get around this, marketers need to move on from the old school thinking of having a new marketing campaign per quarter. Increasingly, our clients with marketing automation are planning two/three year nurture programs, meaning that campaigns are in place for at least twice the average buying cycle. Just think ‘set and forget’, isn’t that one of the reasons you invested in marketing automation (MA) in the first place!

So marketers, next time you have a strategic campaign planning session, think about your workflow; invest in a white wall and some post it notes and get your MA platform working for you.

Just to help you get your creative juices flowing, I’ve included below an example of one of our campaign workflows, and yes I know it looks pretty, but it works too.

If you want to be able to demonstrate ROI and turn off marketing autopilot contact us. You can also read our other blogs in the marketing autopilot series here.

Wouldn’t You Love to: Identify Key Influencers on Social Channels…?

Thea Parnell — Wed, 01 May 2013 10:50:52 +0000

- CrowdVu: a new breed of social intelligence – coming soon!

“We often speak with marketers who are looking to identify their key targets; for either their social media & PR or Marketing Automation & digital campaigns,” says Adam Sharp, CleverTouch Group MD, “and so we have created CrowdVu with them in mind.”

CrowdVu has a core engine built around social media, big data and machine learning. It allows the use of social searching to discover influencers who are mentioning specific terms such as company name, products or services, and segments them based on criteria such as language, location and influence.

Nathan Windle, CleverTouch R&D Director, heads up the CrowdVu product development and describes how the software will help the modern marketer when it launches later this year…

If you’d love to identify key influencers, here’s three ways CrowdVu can help:

1. Identify and build a segment of social influencers, then define with a selection of filters including demographics (i.e. language, country) and topics of conversation

2. Identify key influencers interested in your company and your competitors’ brand/products and services

3. Identify the top 100 influencers by topic and track new entrants and the most active to ensure effective targeting

This is what using the Kred filter to identify the top influencers engaging the topic of “Marketing Automation” looks like within CrowdVu:

In this specific example we created a segment using the search keyword “Marketing Automation”, then targeted specific groups using an advanced filter: those which have a high Kred score of between 800-1000. This resulted in 33 relevant and top influencer profiles out of 720, for outreach or influencer campaigns.

However, this provides just a small snapshot of what CrowdVu can do and what we are working on. We will be sharing more in the future as the CrowdVu team works on further developments – so stay tuned.

For more information on features and functionality please follow us on Twitter.

Will Mobile Rank First in the Battle of the Screens?

Thea Parnell — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 13:29:52 +0000

- Why the only screen that really matters is the one your customers are looking at

Discussions surrounding the great screen debate are rife, as are the arguments for first, second and third place. Adam Sharp, CleverTouch Group MD, shares his thoughts and experiences on the current war waging on the screen battle-ground.

The mobile phone used to be the third screen, apparently now it’s the first – although some experts will argue that it’s the second so perhaps it’s a generational thing. In my daughters’ case they use the mobile/tablet/TV in that order, albeit concurrently.

So with smartphones and tablets outselling pcs why is it that so many marketing campaigns are still built with desktops in mind? This is a bit like putting solid tyres on a modern day car, it will work to some extent but you’ll be in for a bumpy and far less appealing ride.

For one of our clients we built some code, between their Marketing Automation platform and the user, that automatically recognises the device the user is on – and then optimises the content for an enhanced user experience. So what was the result? A staggering 60% uplift in open and engagement rates.

Our role as marketers is to permeate the consumer’s life so all this debate about which screen comes first is a bit defunct. We don’t need to tussle over which is first, second or third, we just need to make sure the experience on the screen they use is as enjoyable as possible, and dynamically optimise the content depending on what’s the most convenient device at the time – because in that moment the only screen that really matters is the one they’re looking at.

Plagiarising IBM’s ‘solutions for a smarter planet’ campaign, there is definite mileage in ‘solutions for smarter platforms’ or rather ‘smarter solutions for all platforms.’

If you feel that your marketing is on autopilot contact us for help on taking back control. You can also read our other blogs in the marketing autopilot series here.

Seat Belts on for a Fast Forward to the Digital Age

Thea Parnell — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 13:43:29 +0000

- Why creative agencies need to pick up the pace

A big topic at the moment in the creative world is agency billings being hit by the shift to digital. Adam Sharp, CleverTouch Group MD, reflects on a recent article read in Campaign Magazine.

Creative agencies just aren’t evolving fast enough, they need to start evolving quickly or risk becoming irrelevant to their customer base.

There is still an over-emphasis on the brand as some kind of demi-god held in the highest esteem – never to be tampered with. Marketing cannot afford to operate in such an art-gallery mode.

The reality is the world has changed; it is not just about the brand anymore, it is about brand engagement and the exchange of ideas and thinking – just talking to those with the biggest spend is no longer enough.

Many overly brand-oriented companies spend a disproportionate amount of the marketing budget on media planning, which is simply irrelevant. The biggest perpetrators of this are the luxury brands; spending ridiculous amounts on brand ambassadors to feature in glossy magazines with a tiny readership. The real engagement opportunity is through digital experiences that could reinforce the brand, and yet this major marketing advantage is simply spurned. A shame when the largest growth markets of Asia and Latin America require more of a digital experience as their sheer geographical size negates the advantages that Bond Street, Rodeo Drive and the Champs Elysee or their equivalents afford.

Agencies need to make a significant shift from a media planning focus to one of a digital engagement across multiple channels – and an understanding of the technologies out there that provide a coherent marketing infrastructure for a true single view of the customer. Much of the language I use will be alien to agencies but they need to realise it is the language of the modern day CMO. One of the reasons we started CleverTouch was a frustration with the number of agencies that genuinely thought that creative and brand identity was a major differentiator and source of revenue outperformance. As such they would place an over-emphasis on the creative elements and the media planning because it was fun and easy money.

The simple fact is that too often the campaigns are shorter in time frame than the buying cycle or purchasing decision, this means ROI on a marketing campaign becomes a work of fiction. If you’re using a traditional creative agency you need to question the value for money and relevancy you are receiving from their methods – the digital age is fast, immediate and relentless and we all need to continually evolve to keep up with it.

There are ways to do this – considerations for your agency:

Creative identity is still important, but marketing operational excellence is now the key to success
2013 is the year of content and great content isn’t expensive, it just needs to be marketed quickly and in a coherent manner to ensure maximum impact
Positioning is king; where and how you are saying it is just as important as what you are saying
Be different – make it cool, quirky and innovative, but deliver it on multiple channels (offline and online) using a marketing technology platform that allows scale and revenue outperformance
The creative focus should not just be identity and imagery but pre and post campaign analysis as well

Remember, in marketing dare to be different, make it snappy and be relevant.

If you’d like to know how we partner with companies to provide a joined-up methodology please contact us.

Celebrating the fantastic four (years at CleverTouch)

Adam Sharp — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 12:55:06 +0000

- with a look at exciting plans for 2013

As CleverTouch enters its 5^th financial year, it’s a perfect time to stop and reflect. Adam Sharp, CleverTouch Group MD, shares the successes of the past 12 months and his plans for the future.

In 2012 a massive achievement for us was being named the fastest growing B2B agency by B2B Marketing and having grown a further 70% in the financial year just ended, things are looking good! This is all down to our customers and we just want to take this opportunity to say a big thank you for their support.

This substantial growth is due to several factors, including: the demand for Marketing Automation (MA) platforms, prospect and customer understanding and the intelligent use of marketing technologies. We have seen a huge increase in demand for these services, which has resulted in the signing of 70 new clients.

We’re also delighted to announce that we have been recognised by Forrester in the forthcoming European Marketing Automation report. Forrester’s Q4 2012 US and Europe B2B Marketing Tactics and Benchmarks Online Survey shows that the rate of investment is now higher in Europe than in the US. Forrester found us based on our customer input so again thank you to all our customers for their kind recommendations.

Looking forward, we are continuing to grow all aspects of our business and will shortly be launching two new ventures. One of which is a software product, CrowdVu, a social search and discovery engine and the other is a new business focussed on content, channel and communities.

Whilst the core of CleverTouch will always focus on Marketing Automation optimisation, 2013 will see us expand our offerings, not least with the aforementioned new product and business launch but, also through the development of our data architecture services specifically to optimise our client’s existing MA investments.

To support our growth and future plans we have increased our headcount by 60%, equipping CleverTouch with a team that has more experience on more MA platforms than anyone; enabling us to provide independent, best practice, consultancy advice to our customers.

CleverTouch is looking to hire more staff in various roles over the coming year; to find out if there is a role suitable for you, please visit careers page.

Joining-up the marketing dots, to see the bigger picture

Adam Sharp — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 11:12:08 +0000

One of the biggest sources of marketing advantage our clients see is in their ‘time to marketing’. The quicker organisations engage with prospects and customers, the better the chance of upsell and cross-sell. Sometimes this means connecting to other systems outside of the Marketing Automation (MA) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) universe.

For example, for one of our clients (a major PC and Software manufacture), we grab their new customer data from Asia, we auto-configure it in a datacentre in the London docklands, using CleverTouch ETL (extract-transfer-load) technology, and then auto-load the contact into a customer journey within the MA platform, which resides in North America. What used to be a marketing campaign based on a batch load once a quarter, now happens 10 times a day, all personalised and with dynamic content based on preferences and profiling behaviour. This time to marketing is why the company in question has email open rates in excess of 60%, because it is timely and relevant.

For another client, this time in the publishing sector, we have integrated their multiple MA instances into their data warehouse, by building and using the CleverTouch integration hub. This means that as a new contact record or field is created (they currently have over 6m customer contacts and 100,000’s of data fields) in one system, it is then automatically replicated in the other. This means the client has a really advanced and coherent data governance strategy – a major foundation for their reputation management as well as providing them a true single view of the customer.

This also means that the client can analyse and report using tried and trusted business intelligence tools, such as Cognos or Business Objects.

If you’d also like to increase your ‘time to marketing’ and or build a single customer view or if you feel that your marketing is on autopilot contact us for help on taking back control. You can also read our other blogs in the marketing autopilot series here.

How to score a perfect 10 with your Marketing Automation platform

Adam Sharp — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 09:45:34 +0000

- 10 tips for maximising ROI

According to Gartner, by 2017 CMO’s will spend more on IT than CIO’s. Within the $12bn CRM space, one of the fastest growing segments is the emerging area of Marketing Automation (MA).

MA allows organisations, typically B2B but now increasingly B2C considered purchases and luxury brands, to integrate a number of marketing channels into one platform including email, CRM, web analytics and increasingly social media.

It then enables fully automated campaigns to run using these channels with sophisticated lead scoring and lead routing models, so that once on the organisations’ radar, the lead or opportunity is never lost, no matter where they are in the process.

OUR TOP TEN TIPS

MA will deliver tremendous benefits that can be realised quickly if the right steps are taken at each stage of the process. Whether you are considering deploying a MA platform or if you want to optimise the use of a platform you already have in place, use our top ten tips as a best practice guide to maximise the investment and accelerate return.

TIP 1: PLATFORM SUITABILITY

Before deploying a MA platform it is imperative that an organisation has a clear objective for implementing the technology. Understanding business requirements and matching them with the correct technology is vital but can be complicated because of the multitude of platform providers available. Because it is so affordable and easy to set up (some deployments can literally be done in 24 hours), organisations can rush into buying the platform with the best marketing, only to find out later that they could have chosen a platform more suited to their needs now and in the future.

TIP 2: CRM / DATA GOVERNANCE

With more rigorous data privacy and governance laws now in place (for example the EU cookie law), organisations have a duty of care to manage customer and prospect data wisely.An organisation must ensure that all data capture formats (CRM, web, landing pages etc), have consistent data capture criteria and validation. Inconsistent data is damaging and can be significantly reduced by correct validation on entry. In addition the normalisation of data allows segmentation and data tracking to be more achievable.

TIP 3: ACTIVE PROSPECT DATA MANAGEMENT

Marketing, especially in B2B environments, can be about small numbers. Being able to target campaigns at specific groups means more effective marketing. Having data that is managed and organised will make this a lot easier to do, and allows filters to be used to create campaign specific segments.

TIP 4: TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM SET UP AND INTEGRATION

Software-as-a-Service means you can quickly get going with MA. Type your log-in into your browser and away you go! However, to really get benefits out of the platform, you will need to take a joined-up approach. Think about how you collect your data with forms (tip 2) and how the MA platform will integrate with the CRM system.

Invest time and use this thinking to ensure your chosen MA platform is installed and fully integrated without letting data governance and business processes be a secondary consideration.

TIP 5: CAMPAIGN WORKFLOW AND ASSETS

Before starting, carefully scope a multi-stage campaign workflow complete with assets of worth to your audience delivered at each stage. All too often organisations already have loads of great content that can be reused or repurposed in different formats or broken down into smaller bite-sized chunks.

Assets should be categorised into 3 logical types: awareness, discovery and validation. The campaign workflow should seek to move the buyer through each type offering logical content at each stage that increases in value as the depth of commitment (from both parties) increases. Building up to a sales or product-focused call to action or event after warming the targets will consistently deliver better results.

TIP 6: CAMPAIGN PERSONALISATION

Personalisation should not just be including a customer’s name at the start of an email. The customer profiles created through the tracking of behaviour in MA should be utilised to tailor and personalise aspects of the campaign to the customer’s situation, making it more engaging.

Only ask for little bits of information at a time and never ask for the same information more than once.

TIP 7: INBOUND / OUTBOUND INTEGRATION

Fully integrate your social media activity into your overarching marketing strategy, rather than maintaining each platform in isolation. Use social media as a communications channel to educate, engage and support your audience using content and messaging from your marketing strategy.

Remember communications are two-way, so listen and respond with relevant information.

TIP 8: CAMPAIGN REPORTING

Use intelligent technologies to join up MA, social media and website activities to provide you with comprehensive campaign analysis and a single view of the prospect / customer across multiple activities. No campaign is complete until the results have been extracted from the system, interpreted, and used to drive intelligent recommendations for future activities.

Capturing immediate metrics as an indicator of performance is a first stage, but also measure the long-term value to sales, ensuring you compare and contrast the ROI with other initiatives. Better yet, use this information to start predicting future outcomes.

TIP 9: SALES AND MARKETING ALIGNMENT

Marketing’s contribution to sales is the objective of your investment, so think about load-balancing the funnel with multiple campaigns and building a predictable pipeline over time.

Unfortunately too much marketing activity is just sales promotion. Winning the latest iPad builds no favourability; it just adds volatility and increased levels of randomness and chance to the marketing process.

Agree some lead scoring principles across both sales and marketing, based on explicit and implicit data. In an ideal world marketing should plan to deliver less but better quality leads to the sales organisation and in return for such a commitment ensure sales follow up within a specified time period and feedback on the quality.

TIP 10: MARKETING AUTOMATION REQUIRES DIFFERENT SKILLSETS

Typically the marketing function has had 3 types of marketers:

Marketing communication - great with creative and design & communication
Marketing operations - great for process and structure
Product marketers - great for product and market understanding

However, MA requires a different skill set, and in an ideal world a three headed hydra. Someone who is great at data and analytics, skilled at the design of campaign workflows and brilliant at system set up.

Whether you decide to outsource the management of your MA, find support with running it internally or adapt your marketing function accordingly, ensure you have access to the right skillset in the various stages of MA to maximise success.

In conclusion

Your MA implementation should become the bedrock of your marketing comms strategy. It should lead to better data, consistent and tailored contact with prospects and existing customers, better campaign open rates, improved traffic to your site and marketing events, better lead qualification and therefore, better sales conversion. It enables the marketer to move from the back foot to the front foot by being able to plan and predict future outcomes.

MA works, but how well it works depends on how the user implements it.

If you have points to add to this, or would like to discuss further, please email us. We welcome your views and are happy to help further.

Marketing Automation NOT Marketing Autopilot

Adam Sharp — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 16:41:01 +0000

Campaigns don’t have to start and end with an email

Marketers love the efficacies and complexity that a Marketing Automation platform brings, however many are still only using it to send multi-touch email campaigns to prospects, they think every campaign has to begin and end with an email – they’re on autopilot!

Some of our clients are maximising their investment in the platform by thinking up really smart customer engagement workflows and using them to automate communication processes surrounding customer service and retention, HR recruitment & on-boarding and even new product development and beta-testing.

Human interaction needn’t only be at the end of a drip campaign

For example, one of our clients in the financial services sector is using Marketing Automation as an automated campaign, following their customer engagement, to measure customer satisfaction and to systemise their word of mouth marketing. They are also using it to manage and monitor the performance and cross selling capabilities of their sales agents.

Here is how it works:

When the sales agent finishes a client engagement, they hit a button in their CRM system and a customer is automatically entered into an automated marketing programme to get their feedback on their personal experience as a customer.

Where clients are satisfied or extremely satisfied they are entered into a customer referral programme where they are offered incentives to promote the service to others they know. Where clients are dissatisfied they are automatically entered into a campaign designed to resolve their issues and gain feedback on performance improvement and employee training.

The result:

Over a three month period the client saw a 70% increase in inbound enquiries.

If you would like to see increases in your inbound enquiries and discuss how you can optimise your CRM and Marketing Automation platforms contact us.

Alternatively if you feel that your marketing is on autopilot contact us for help on taking back control. You can also read our other blogs in the marketing autopilot series here.

8 steps to (email campaign) heaven

Louise Fielding-Smith — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 10:45:32 +0000

Email marketing through a Marketing Automation (MA) platform has the ability to increase the effectiveness of email campaigns, contributing to the creation of a single view of the customer and providing deeper market insight.

However, we still see instances of the technology helping to make the same ‘batch and blast’ mistakes faster, to a larger audience.

Realising the benefits of MA begins with the creation of carefully crafted campaigns across the marketing plan that seeks to increase effectiveness and contribute to the goal of building a single view of the customer. Perfecting your skills in creating compelling email campaigns will aid the optimisation of your MA platform with the benefits reaching throughout the marketing function and entire business.

To learn the essential stages that must be addressed to create a truly compelling and effective campaign, download 8 Essentials for A Compelling Campaign or contact us.

Citizen Sharp explains the CleverTouch approach to CSR

Adam Sharp — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 14:12:52 +0000

Those who are regular readers of this blog may remember last year CleverTouch Group MD, Adam Sharp shared his view on the purpose of the company and how that now resonates in CleverTouch’s newly defined purpose statement. In this blog post, Adam explains how we have moved from having a purpose to defining a citizenship policy within CleverTouch and how this is helping to shape our company culture.

“Just being nice, honest (even green) with good professional values is no longer enough. Carbon Offsetting will make you feel good but on its own has little impact. Businesses today need a little more, they need a purpose but they need some substance too.

With this in mind we started researching how we could build a company culture and values that could give us purpose, but also impact positively on our various stakeholders; customers, employees, partners, the local community and our families. We have a saying here, family first, but customers a close second – we think this is also a more honest approach.

As part of this, we came across a Sustainability Manager at a financial company, who recently received a Masters (with Distinction) in Sustainability, he lives in Alresford our home village. He spared some of his time to give us advice and direction on how to build our own sustainable policy – which we call our Citizenship Policy.

We presented the concept to our employees and very quickly we got enough volunteers to work on our citizenship initiative. This citizenship team meets monthly and I am delighted to say that in a company of little over 30 employees our citizenship team boasts eight members. Rather than overkill we see this as important to our company DNA, and if more members wanted to join the team that would be encouraged.

Around the same as we started this initiative I was lucky enough to hear Kate Robertson, UK Group Chairman of Euro RSCG Worldwide’s inspirational speech at the annual IDM conference, in it she constantly referenced her Global Chairman, David Jones and his book, Who Cares Wins, a stunning book whose timing was so prescient after all the financial debacles of recent years.

The citizenship group also launches and develops new ideas too. One is EDventures, which will be a platform where we invest in bright new people or complementary businesses in an effort to build a stronger IP network but also to give something back through platforms such as Funding Circle or Lend with Care and our annual charity initiatives.

We are delighted to share our citizenship policy, we have asked everyone in the business to sign up to it, just as they sign up to their contract of employment. It is how we want people to behave and treat each other and we want this embedded in our DNA. We are secular, but aren’t extremists in any way, we just think businesses need a bigger heart, and if you do some good then the karma kicks in! It is all part of our get rich slowly plan.”

If you like our policy and can use it, please plagiarise it. If we could improve it please let us know. We are sure it will evolve as we evolve our business. And, if you agree with our values please take a look at our careers page, we might just have a role that might excite you.