MarketingExperiments Blog: Research-driven optimization, testing, and marketing ideas

This week at the San Francisco leg of MarketingSherpa’s B2B Summit 2011, Brian Carroll, Executive Director of Applied Research, MECLABS, and Nicolette Dease, Program Manager, MECLABS Leads Group, provided tactical training on optimizing lead generation.

Part of this presentation was a case study on finding the most efficient list source based on a test that looked at several different lead sources.

The objective of the test was to determine if higher-cost/higher-quality data can drive down overall cost-per-lead, and the primary research question was, “Which campaign data source will drive the most efficient value?”

The test design looked at six list segments with 300 accounts and 80 hours of calling per segment. Let’s first look at how much each lead costs for discovery:

• Multi-source 1, validated by phone based on role – record cost $24
• Multi-source 2, validated by phone based on title – record cost $14.50
• Multi-source 3, validated by phone – record cost $6
• Multi-source 4, validated by email – record cost $3
• User-generated, validated by business cards – record cost $1
• Single-source, no validation – record cost $0.49

Read more…

Here’s one of the things I love about working with Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Managing Director and CMO, MECLABS – he routinely looks at the most vexing marketing challenges and creates an entirely new paradigm; a new lens through which to approach these challenges.

Take the marketing funnel for example. Flint says that the traditional view of the sales and marketing funnel is, essentially, upside down. Literally.

In fact, you should take the traditional funnel and flip it. Prospects aren’t just falling into this wide net, waiting for someone to sell to them. Rather, you must keep pushing them up through the funnel, against the constant tug of gravity, which slows down and often stops your sales process. The force that pushes them up through that funnel and overcomes all the forces that can easily stop that sales is a powerful value proposition.

Flint spoke extensively about value proposition at MarketingSherpa B2B Summit 2011 in Boston, and I grabbed him just after the Summit ended to ask a few questions about value prop for B2B marketers: Read more…

Upon the completion of the recent MarketingSherpa 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report, we learned that because of an ever more challenging environment, B2B marketers are beginning to embrace sales conversion as a Sales and Marketing responsibility, and not just Sales alone.

We are on the right track. The challenge is that marketers are having trouble gaining funnel optimization maturity.

Chart: B2B marketers show high levels of maturity at top of the funnel, not at the bottom

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B2B marketers are the most likely to have formal processes established for lead generation, and the least likely to have them for overall funnel optimization. Now is the time for marketers to capitalize on this trend, and really get ahead of the curve to establish their companies and themselves as industry leaders and champion over the competition.

So how can marketers gain maturity in funnel optimization? As a highly complex process, it is likely the reason for marketer’s struggle. Starting with some funnel optimization is going to be more effective than paying no regard to it. In this interest, we have identified a simplified, five-step process to getting started with funnel optimization. Read more…

One of the easiest things to do to get a lift on a lead generation offer is to reduce the number of form fields. We hear it all the time because it works. The problem is, it only works so well and then you start seeing diminishing returns. Plus there’s always the issue of the quality of leads you’re getting from your form. The less fields you have, the lower quality your leads are.

So how do you get a lift on a lead gen page without reducing the number of fields? Well, there are a couple of things you should understand before I get into that…
Read more…

“She was here on earth to make sense of its wild enchantment and to call each thing by its right name.” – Boris Pasternak (Doctor Zhivago)

Sometimes, as marketers, this is one of our biggest challenges. We must make sense of the “wild enchantment” inherent in our audience so we can call each offering we have by its right name. After all, the way we think about our products can be vastly different from the way our audience thinks about them. This is why specific words matter, and for more than just SEO.

Let’s take a look at a recent test conducted by MarketingSherpa (sister company to MarketingExperiments), to determine which words best tap into the audience’s motivations. Read more…

I’m hoping that one thing you have learned from reading the MarketingExperiments blog is that there isn’t much in the marketing world that can’t, or shouldn’t be, tested and optimized. We are used to looking at the top of the funnel – optimizing landing pages, website headline copy, email campaigns, etc., but what happens after you capture that lead? Can’t the buying process be tested and optimized as well?

The short answer is, yes, the funnel can be optimized – and it should be! Before you can optimize lead progression through the funnel, you must first identify what that process looks like.

At MarketingSherpa, we have just launched our annual B2B Marketing Benchmark Survey to identify key tactics B2B marketers can use for funnel optimization, and to ensure success in an increasingly challenging environment.

As we embark on this new study, I’d like to look at a key chart that was included in MarketingSherpa’s 2011 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report. We asked 935 B2B marketers what funnel stages they have identified for their organization. The results are presented in the following chart: Read more…