By Justin Gray
June 24, 2010
There is an equation that exists in Lead Generation that in some cases proves to be the sole measure of marketing’s efforts. Cost per Lead (CPL) is a notion with which we’re all familiar, and often to which we are a slave. In down economies everyone clambers for lower cost, but better quality leads. Does that unicorn exist? We believe it does, but it takes a variety of tools to produce Conversational Conversion.
The shift in recent years to both CPL and ROI-driven marketing has produced some exciting results. The most dominant is the foothold that technology has gained within the marketing space. Even then, most of the resources available to the marketing department were sales tools that held some level of marketing functionality. A campaign here, an e-mail blasting tool there and POW, we’re all digital marketers! Right?
Not really. But it didn’t take long. The desire for better tools, and of course, the need to actually attribute revenue to marketing dollar led to a new breed of technology. Lead Management Platforms, Lead Scoring Tools, Web Analytics, Landing Page Optimization Vendors, Retargeting Solutions, and Social Media Hubs.
So what’s the problem? Why haven’t we stopped looking? Well, at some point we overshot the mark. We forgot about the art. We overcompensated for years of marketing dollar anonymity and forgot that important lesson taught by Saturday morning cartoons: Knowing is half the battle. Having a well defined lead profile, content marketing strategy, and nurturing strategy, prior to implementing these “solutions,” determines their effectiveness. But for all the implications of its name, Marketing Automation is anything but automatic.
In reality, Marketing Automation is a stress test that exposes holes in the marketing strategy. With the advent of “web 2.0” and the rise of educational based marketing strategy many marketers have been playing catch up lately. When Marketing Automation came along it seemed like a good way to expedite change and meet the needs of these CEO-driven paradigm shifts.
So with the prospect of a technology to better communicate marketing messages, manage leads effectively and hopefully convert interest into sales with less manual work, we dug in. The result has been varied to say the least.
Without a doubt, Marketing Automation has helped us better respond to prospective customer interest, provide tailored messaging online and through e-mail, and respond to variant scoring actions. But for many organizations who were early adopters of the technology the tool simply hasn’t lived up to expectations, or in some cases, never got off the ground. More often than not this isn’t the fault of the platform, but the result of poor scope and implementation.
How important is a “lead”? If you work at the kinds of companies I have, most meetings, conversations, happy hours, Christmas parties and occasional awards dinners start off, or end up talking about leads. We as marketers define our successes and our value within organizations by the ability to produce them. Sales results from them, and everything else down the line. I can say without a doubt that organizations that have successfully leveraged Marketing Automation have embraced this importance, done their homework and leveraged every resource possible to ensure the success of the solution.
You see with the youth of Marketing Automation there are few organizations that truly know how successful lead management works. And there are even fewer who know how to do it well. The adage is true: Good help is hard to find. Most traditional marketing agencies have now become “Digital Marketing Agencies.” Their weapon of choice, Marketing Automation. Many of today’s marketing agencies now call to mind images from AMC’s “Mad Men.” Similar to the ad agencies of yore, their heyday has come and gone. Why? The business model just doesn’t meet the on-demand mentality many of today’s organizations have embraced.
So if we can’t look to traditional channels to help with Marketing Automation, where do we look? That is where we see the largest potential for growth in the market and that breed has already started to arise. The type of organization that wants to embrace cutting edge lead management technology such as Marketing Automation is looking for a more nimble vendor to help with the process of implementation but also, and more importantly, to help re-tool and define the entire sales and marketing process.
This trend shows great hope on the horizon for companies looking to lower their CPL and embrace vehicles such as e-mail engagement and online lead qualification. The ability to educate a prospect, define an interest point and respond with the right form of engagement makes up Conversational Conversion. The steps along the way are paved with content. This is where organizations need to spend their time, because ultimately, it’s where the prospect spends his/her time.
To save time down the road with Marketing Automation we must initially focus on the design, i.e. the art, of Conversational Conversion. This is the proof that translates to success in Lead Generation – technology is just the framework to help with the process. Having a calculator is nice, but unfortunately it doesn’t solve the problem. When the dust settles, it will be those marketers who did the math first in their heads who will have solved the lead equation accurately and scored an A+.
Justin Gray is CEO & Founder of LeadMD, a marketing services firm focused on organic lead generation and the successful deployment of marketing automation. Justin can be reached at jgray@leadmd.com.