I recently got my hands on Marketo’s latest white paper, titled: The Definitive Guide to Marketing Metrics and Analytics.

Here are some of the gems I found in the 70-page paper and which I cover in the video above.

1. Define targets for each of your marketing campaigns as you plan them. Consider setting a ‘best possible outcome’, ‘worst case scenario’ and ‘most likely outcome’. Express these targets in terms of number of leads, amount of incremental revenue to be generated, or in terms of anticipated ROI.
2. Keep 10% of your marketing budget for ‘Marketing R&D’. Experimentation can lead to new best practices. Acknowledge that you are experimenting with some of your programs and detach those from revenue targets.
3. Don’t Measure Just for the Sake of Measurement. Before you invest time and resources in measuring a data set, you should know what you would do if the answer turned out to be X or Y.
4. Define Distinct Stages in your Customer’s Buying Cycle. Especially in B2B, with longer sales cycles, you need to acknowledge the fact that there are several stages in the buying cycle. Marketing’s work will not only generate leads, but also help move leads forward through these stages. This requires fixed definitions – understood across the marketing and sales organization – based on business rules.



5. Measure Flow, Balance, Conversion and Velocity of Leads. Once you have lead stages defined, the following metrics will be most important: Flow (# of people entering the stage), Balance (current inventory in that stage), Conversion (% of names, on average, that make it from the previous stage) and Velocity (time it takes, on average, to complete the stage).
6. Aim to knowing the answers to these crucial questions: What would be the expected ROI if your marketing budget increased by 10%. What would be the impact on sales closed? Alternately, what would be the impact on sales if the budget was decreased 10%? Questions like these test marketing’s maturity.

This paper is a must-read for marketing executives that are aiming to improve their departments’ efficiency and accountability.

In his latest book titled Enchantment, Guy Kawasaki covers the principles that individuals and businesses can apply to achieve personal and professional success.

If you don’t have time to read the book, or are looking for a nice refresher, look no further. Here is a handy overview in the form of an Infographic: How to Achieve Enchantment.

Stephen Covey’s book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, has provided inspiration to countless numbers of people since it was released over two decades ago. The seventh and final habit in the book focuses on continuous improvement, what Covey calls “sharpening the saw”.

What are the best ways for marketers to build and sustain their own expertise? Which books, which blogs, and which conferences, and which individuals drive us towards excellence?

Join us this Thursday for our next #B2Bchat event where we dive into these questions.

Q. What is the best marketing-related book you’ve read recently?

Q. How has social media changed the way marketers learn?

I recently had the pleasure of reading Seth Godin’s latest book, Poke the Box. It’s a nice, light read and something that can be fit into an afternoon visit to your favorite coffee shop.

As with other Seth Godin books that I’ve read, the message first strikes you as self evident. “Of course this makes sense. Who wouldn’t know that?” But Seth has a way of taking the obvious, and using it as a means to teach a lesson.

I’d like to share some of the things that have stuck with me from this book. Incidentally, as I was reading it, Twitter provided a temporary outlet to tell the rest of the world what I was gleaning from the pages. There were a lot of bite-sized pieces of information, perfect for the 140 character limit on Twitter.

The basic premise of the book is that a lot of people are afraid of starting, of experimenting with new ideas, of ‘poking the box’ to see what happens.

“There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth.
Not going all the way, and not starting.”
Siddhartha Gautama

The Starbucks story provides an example of how it’s ok to start, and be wrong at first. One of the founders, Jerry Baldwin, had a vision of a company that would sell coffee beans and tea leaves. His vision turned out to be wrong, and it was only after his business partner Howard Schultz visited Italy and developed a passion for espresso, that the company took the direction for which it is known today. Jerry Baldwin was wrong, but because he started, it allowed for the company to know it was wrong, then change direction.

The person who fails the most usually wins

Talk to any person who is successful and they will share with you their list of failures that helped bring them to where they are. If you fail only once, i.e. fail big, it’s game over. If you never fail, you’re either very lucky, or you’ve never tried succeeding. It is in allowing yourself multiple smaller failures, and learning from them, that you move forward to successes. Poke the box, figure out which ideas resonate, and then ship them.

Why is this message relevant now?

Today’s market is obsessed with novelty. In a world where information can spread quickly, the most remarkable ideas win.

I’d like to share this fantastic presentation by French consulting firm faberNovel, a study on how Apple has maneuvered itself successfully in the market against Microsoft and Google.

More and more B2B marketers are turning to lead scoring as a way of optimizing lead management. Many of us will remember when we used to process raw Excel lists, handing over hundreds of names with job titles and companies to our sales department, only to find that leads weren’t being followed up on. It wasn’t possible to know which leads were the most interested in your company, and wasn’t easy to see which matched your target buyer.

Recent advances in marketing automation and sales CRM software have made it easier to streamline the whole process. Marketing and sales professionals can apply lead scoring algorithms to leads, effectively sorting and prioritizing them for nurturing programs and sales follow-up.

In a recent episode of the weekly #B2Bchat on Twitter, we dug into questions surrounding lead scoring. Here is a summary of the questions and comments, compiled:

Q. What is lead scoring?

• There are a lot of online resources on the topic lead scoring. We’ve posted a couple of articles on lead scoring including The 5 Basics of Lead Scoring on B2Bbloggers.com.
• Here are a couple of definitions of lead scoring in 140 characters or less: Lead scoring is assigning a probability/weight to a lead based on its online behavior while interacting with your digital assets (via @joezuc) and Lead scoring is giving a rating system to prospects so more time spent with qualified leads (via @NuSparkMktg)

Q. What do you need in order to get started with lead scoring?

• A marketing automation system. Vendors that were mentioned by name in the session included Marketo, Vtrenz, Eloqua, Genius, Marketbright and Silverpop. @jepc referred us to a comprehensive list of marketing automation systems that he has compiled.
• You need a list of the possible paths/interactions a customer can have with your digital assets. This can be quite complex, depending on the type of product/service.
• A target audience definition is needed, and an understanding of your buyer personas.
• You need to understand your customer buying behavior. Talk to sales in order to learn buying behaviors, and look at previous activities associated with closed deals.
• An agreement on the definition of a lead is essential. Sales and marketing need to come up with the definition together. Any discussion of lead scoring helps sales and marketing connect better with goals.
• Executive buy-in from sales & marketing leadership is needed.

Q. What advice would you give to marketers that want to take lead scoring to the next level?

• Normalize job titles to get better scoring, or restrict job titles to a pick list.
• If possible, include consideration of offline activities as well.
• The following high-value interactions should be weighted accordingly: E.g. “How We Help” page = higher score
• The combo of product page w. case study or contact us page = bonus points
• More visits from more people in one company within a shorter time frame = bonus points
• Use negative scoring for certain job titles, e.g. consultant, student and assistant.
• Review lead scores of closed sales to assess the validity of your scoring assumptions

This post appeared originally at b2bbloggers.com.

How do B2B marketers tackle the question of marketing campaign value? Do we make strategic decisions based on real, actionable data? With the firehose of data that is available to marketers now-a-days, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find the information that truly matters. And this is especially true for B2B with their typically complex, drawn out sales cycles.

In our latest episode of #B2Bchat, we dug into questions surrounding metrics. Here is a summary of the questions and comments, compiled:

Q. Which components of your digital marketing campaigns are delivering the best results? E.g. Search, Email, Display Advertising, Social Media?

• Search (PPC and SEO). These are most effective when in used in conjunction with great landing pages.
• Email
• Mediums are secondary, success depends on the contextual relevance of the message.

Q. Why do campaign budgets get cut? Poor performance or lack of tracking?

• Both: poor performance due to lack of clear objectives. and lack of tracking because no analysis properly done during campaign
• Most of the time the problem is poorly defined goals and metrics
• Budget cuts can also come due to lack of well defined baselines.
• Lack of commitment to the campaign. Unreasonable expectations of sales impact.
• On social media budgets: Shyness with social media due to it being unproven, thus high risk. Execs are holding back.
• Measuring metrics a science, but knowing how to explain them can sometimes be an art. e.g. convincing your boss to keep budget.

Q. What is your biggest pet peeve when it comes to marketing reports?

• First Dashboard reports need to be customized (management level) and meet biz needs…focus on actionable metrics!
• A lot of people over-do it with reports. Too much data and too complex = danger of focusing on wrong metrics.

Q. How do you assess the value of a digital marketing campaign? Where do you start?

• Have specific goals and objectives
• Start with the dollar value of new sales and work backwards
• Measure the number of sales-ready leads and wins
• A good marketing dashboard is fundamental

Q. What metrics (Key Performance Indicators) do you track? Which matter most?

• “Actionable” metrics, data which will allow us to make better decisions and take action
• PDF downloads, newsletter subscriptions, sales leads, e-commerce transactions
• Clicks, conversion, leads
• Customer retention
• Qualified leads, Reach, Buzz, Sentiment
• Engagement: comments/replies
• Predictive actions: signups, downloads, resource access

Word art of transcript from April 29 #B2Bchat – Measuring the Value of Digital Marketing (courtesy of Wordle.net).

This summary was originally posted at www.b2bbloggers.com.

What is the Return on Investment (ROI) of an ad campaign? How do you go about measuring it? Which attribution models work best for your sales process?

These are some of the things I was working on this afternoon which led me to ponder the following relationship. As you start to think of the ROI question, it sounds very straight forward.

Return on Investment = (Gain – Investment) / Investment

Then you begin to realize that there are a lot of different ways to define each of these. And what about the interplay between the various ad campaign investments? Where does it end?

It’s not until you work it through further that it becomes clearer once again.

Redesigning a website can be a lengthy, complicated process. Done properly, it can give a dramatic boost you your online presence. Over the years I’ve had the pleasure, and pain, of being a part of several redesign projects.

Here is a checklist for website redesign, a series of steps that developers will go through in a successful redesign project.

1. Document the reasons you’re redesigning the website.
   Having these listed will act as a compass through the lengthy project. When things get stressful, you’ll want this reminder.
2. Test the old site, e.g. with an online intercept survey.
   How easily can users find key parts of the site? Other testing methods include focus groups and eye tracking. For the survey, get enough data to make it statistically relevant. The qualitative, descriptive feedback from one-on-one sessions with customers is also very valuable.
3. Conduct a baseline analysis of the old site.
   A baseline analysis is a document which sets the bar by which the future site will be measured. It should detail how the old site has performed over the past year, including key performance indicators like visitors, bounce rate, conversion rates, pages/visit, etc.
4. Set targets for the new site.
   These should be actual numbers and be based on the baseline mentioned above.
5. Hire a design company.
   Choose a company which has experience in your industry and has demonstrated success in the past. Do they ask you the right questions? Do they understand your customer? Do they deliver on budget and on schedule?
6. Map out the new site’s architecture.
   Work on a whiteboard or a blank piece of paper. Use one box per web page, starting with the home page on top. Draw lines between the pages to show logical connections. An alternative process, called Card Sorting, starts with cue cards. Create one cue card per web page, lay them out on a large table and start grouping and arranging them.
   When mapping out the architecture, remember to keep the site compact, i.e. don’t create too many levels. This is bad for usability and bad for search engine optimization.
7. Do keyword research.
   Consider words being used by your customers, at conferences, etc. Take a look at your old site’s analytics to determine which keywords have been bringing traffic from the search engines, especially traffic that converts into real business. Also consider third party tools like Google’s Search-based keyword tool, Seo Book’s Keyword Suggestion Tool. And don’t forget Google Trends.
   How long should your keyword list be? That depends on your business model. But in most circumstances, a list of 20-30 is a great start.
8. Audit all of your existing online collateral.
   This includes all old and existing web pages, online brochures, podcasts, etc. Make a list in Excel and leave a couple of columns for notes and an instructions, e.g. ‘keep’, ‘keep but edit’, or ‘throw away’. B2B sites should also make room for columns to describe the type of buyer that web page appeals to, e.g. technical buyer, economic buyer, and when in the buying process that web page would best be viewed, i.e. Phase I: Awareness of Problem, Phase II: Researching a Solution, etc.
9. Write content for the new site.
   Each page should have a clear purpose, give an opportunity to continue, and be optimized for 1-2 keywords identified in number 7 above.
10. Create wireframes, mock-ups, etc.
    Carried out for the most part by your design company, this is where your combined knowledge of the target market turns into a creative and user friendly design which works.  Have the design company give you at least a couple of unique designs for the home page to choose from.
11. Test the mock-ups for usability.
    Let some customers loose on these mock-ups. The pages only need minor functionality for now, e.g. be able to click on a couple of key areas. Make note of how easily and quickly key parts can be found.
12. Fix, adjust and iterate
    Based on the results of your tests, iterate until you have a design which you can live with for the next 2 – 3 years.
13. Build out and populate pages.
    A lot of this may be handled by the web design company. Take all of the freshly written content and place it in the built pages. When choosing file and folder names for pages, consider using the keywords you identified in the keyword research stage above.
14. Organic optimization (SEO)
    You’ve already written the content and used the right keywords. Now is the time to take it further by ensuring that each page’s title, description and header tags do the same. Include links between pages. Interlinking is great for usability and great for search engine spiderability.
    Don’t forget to create a sitemap. There are two types of sitemaps, one which is on your site and visible to the user, and one which is visible only to the search engines (an XML Sitemap).
    And, don’t forget inbound links coming to some of the old site’s pages. Put a redirect in place for each of those so the new visitors, and link power, know where to go.
15. Testing. Try to break it before the site is launched.
    Get a large group of people you trust to poke around, find broken links, etc. Use various browsers, operating systems, look at it on a smart phone.
16. Add tracking code to each web page.
    This will ensure you can measure what’s happening with the new site. For tracking software like Google Analytics, it will be a fairly easy process, i.e. same tracking code on each page which can be applied in the footer.
17. Launch day. Flick the switch, uncork the champagne.
    Don’t forget to take a screen shot of the old site.
18. Post-launch monitoring
    Make a schedule and force yourself to note the key stats at regular intervals after the site is launched. For the first few days, do it every day. After that, weekly. If you have budget, do a second intercept survey (see #2 above).
19. Take the time to create a Content Development / Maintenance plan.
    Use a calendar and map out when you’ll be adding new content. How often will the ‘latest events’ section be updated? Who will update it? When will you review the product descriptions? Or case studies?
20. Keep a journal of this whole process

You’ve got to hand it to Danny Sullivan. Earlier yesterday, he wrote a blog post which scolds Bill Gates’ new website from an SEO perspective. For online marketers, it’s a fantastic lesson in SEO 101. For Bill Gates, a reason to smile, blush, or point a finger. You be the judge.

In case you hadn’t heard, or seen, Bill Gates launched his own website last week called The Gates Notes. Bill Gates’ new website allows you to “stay up to date on where Bill is at, what Bill is learning and what is on his mind.” The Twittersphere welcomed Bill Gates last week as well. In case you’re not following him, Bill Gates’ Twitter username is, unsurprisingly, @billgates.

So back to Danny Sullivan’s critique of The Gates Notes. Danny starts off by showing the Search Results Page for the query ‘bill gates blog’. The results show his blog listed in the top 10 in Google, but being outranked by some fake Bill Gates blogs. Interestingly, in Bing, his new blog didn’t show up at all in the top 10.

The blog post proceeds with a well-laid-out walk through SEO 101. And the example he uses happens to be the founder of Microsoft, the world’s second richest man who has just started blogging and tweeting. It points out the importance of:

- relevant title tags
- description tags
- unique title tags for each web page
- the power of inbound links, even from Twitter

I’ve just taken a look at The Gates Notes site and it looks like some changes have already been made to the Bill Gates site. Back on his blog post, Danny Sullivan is taking some heat, but also a lot of well deserved praise in the comments section. And it looks like Bill reached out to him on Twitter as well:

Bill Gates Twitter reply to Danny Sullivan

To read the original blog post, an SEO analysis of Bill Gates’ new website, visit: http://searchengineland.com/some-seo-advice-for-bill-gates-34303.