Last week, our President, Jeff Erramouspe (@jefferramouspe), sat down with DemandGen Report via Skype to discuss the latest trends surrounding content marketing  and marketing automation.  The focus of the discussion revolved around the symbiotic relationship between content and marketing automation . As more and more emphasis is placed on content, it is necessary to have the means to deliver it to a target audience. Jeff explains how having good content without the technology, or vise-versa is useless.  Additionally, Jeff touches on the recent release of Manticore Winter 2102 —the latest version of Manticore’s marketing automation platform—and how the content marketing trend played into its development. Click here to see the entire discussion.

Creating effective lead nurturing programs is a significant challenge for many marketing organizations.  At Manticore, we spend a great deal of time measuring and tuning our lead nurturing efforts to ensure that we are delivering the highest quality leads to our sales team.  While there are many variables to think about, we find that focusing on five key elements has the greatest impact on our overall results.  When you start your next periodic review, think about these five things to focus your overall efforts:

• Double Check Your Lead Definitions:  Marketing and sales should be in agreement on what constitutes a fully qualified lead.  Definitions of a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) and a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) may vary over time based on market conditions and business objectives. Make sure your MQL and SQL definitions are properly tuned with respect to vertical market, customer size, project timing, budget and buying cycle.

• Check Your Buying Personas Against Real Sales Results:  Whereas lead definition generally refers to the characteristics of a target customer, buying personas define the different roles inside that customer that drive the purchase process.  The characteristics of the Decision Maker, Influencer, Economic Buyer and others can change, so review your actual closed sales from the previous quarter and adjust your personas accordingly.  For example, we saw a significant increase in the IT department as an influencer when we started selling to prospects with Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

• Match Your Content to Persona and Purpose: If your personas change, your content must as well.  Review your existing content to make sure that it will still speak to the needs of the specific persona and buying phase.  There is a common belief that new content must be created for each new nurture or persona.  In reality, existing content can generally be refreshed, repackaged, and reconstituted so that it fits your revised objectives.  Our experience says that one major, multi-part content project per year (like the e-book referenced at the end of this blog) along with about one minor project a quarter (like this white paper about content marketing) should keep the content pump primed.

• Look for Opportunities to Personalize the Nurture:  We like to blend a human touch with our automated lead nurture projects.  This may seem counter intuitive, but we find that inserting our demand generation representatives into a nurture program increases the conversion rate of leads into qualified prospects.  For example, we have placed follow-up phone calls after leads have downloaded a whitepaper simply to offer to answer any questions they might have about the subject matter.  While the connect rate may be low, a non-sales oriented message leaves a positive impression and increases the likelihood of further conversations.

• Make Sure You're Creating A Journey:  Lead nurturing should engage your prospects in a digital conversation that leads them through their buying journey.  Starting small in order to learn and build off of short-term success is a smart first step.  However, at each period review, you should look to add new steps to the process, building new nurture programs that help resolve sticking points in your marketing/sales process.

Lead nurturing is critical to an efficient marketing/sales process.  It's not enough to just set-up your programs and let them run.  They require periodic review and adjustment, and focusing on the most important elements will ensure your tune-ups are effective. For more lead nurturing guidance, please see our Lead Nurturing Cookbook.

In her recent Marketing Automation Software Guide blog post “How To Convince Your Boss to Buy Marketing Automation”, Kim Roman of G5 Search Marketing does an excellent job covering the key business factors that are important to include when pitching the purchase of a marketing automation platform to your boss. She covers everything from KPIs and ROI to possible objections and more.

Kim makes it clear that while marketing automation requires a new plan of operation, training, and upkeep, the benefits to be gained from such a transformative platform are worth more than the direct and indirect costs of implementation. She accurately identifies the combination of hard facts and real buying concerns that will make the case for why your company needs marketing automation.

While Kim focuses on tangible, economic benefits in order to get approval, there are also less tangible, emotional factors that play into convincing management to get enthused about your plans.  Here are few additional things to think about:

• Look Good to Your Buyers: B2B buyers have dramatically changed the way they purchase products and services.  Resistant to overtures from sales people early in their process, they rely on web research and social media to create a short list.  Marketing automation platforms allow you to create the inbound and outbound programs that engage B2B buyers in digital conversations that match their buying processes.  Without it, your competitors that utilize marketing automation will look much better to your prospects.
• Look Good to Sales: The flip side to engaging with B2B buyers through a marketing automation platform is that it will dramatically improve the efficiency of your overall sales process.  Tracking the content consumed by a specific prospect, the timing and duration of his web visits, and response to email marketing offers will tell you precisely where a buyer is in his process.  The information allows sales to only be engaged with prospects that are really ready to buy, increasing sales efficiency and decreasing overall sales cycles.  The CMO will look GREAT to his sales counterpart.
• Maximize Content Marketing Efforts: A 2011 survey by the Content Marketing Institute found that B2B marketers spend an average of 26% of their marketing budgets on content marketing.  Without a marketing automation platform, however, it is difficult to deliver the content to the buyer in the right form at the right time.  If marketing automation is the engine, content is the fuel – spending money on fuel without an engine to burn it makes no sense.  Investing in marketing automation will make the money already being spent on content marketing much more effective.

For further information on investing in marketing automation see: Whitepaper: Five Fast Payoffs for Investing in Marketing Automation  and  eBook: The Quintessential Marketing Automation Guide

We are pleased to announce the first week of the Manticore Winter 2012 launch! As Manticore Technology’s Director of Product Management, I want to personally introduce you to the latest advancements in the Manticore Platform and expand a little more on exactly what they can do.

Design Wizard Template Selection

The biggest and most extensive advancement is our new Design Wizard for landing pages and emails. The premise behind the new Design Wizard focuses on a central truth: that the person who can successfully navigate the perils of HTML coding to create a beautiful and compelling layout, and the person responsible for creating and delivering a compelling message – are not one and the same.

Our new template-based concept therefore separates the management of content from that of layout and design- allowing marketers and designers to each focus on what they do best. Marketers can select from a variety of pre-existing templates, or have their designers employ Manticore’s new Template Language to create custom templates that both protect design integrity and enforce branding standards by limiting edits to specified content zones.

Design Canvas

The Wizard's Design Canvas makes it extremely easy for marketers to customize fonts and colors, manage content and configure personalization in an intuitive, graphical interface.

Another big addition, and probably our most popular, is the email testing capabilities with Litmus integration. The integration helps ensure the Inbox delivery of attractive and professional-looking emails by allowing marketers to score their content for potential spam triggers, and to preview their email as it would appear in more than 30 email clients and devices.

We have also included updated email throttling and batching features, allowing more control over the delivery rate of emails to a given domain or recipient in order to minimize unsubscribe rates while maximizing email deliverability.

Litmus Email Client Preview Results

 

Finally, we have redesigned our interface with a new, more modern look and feel and added user-oriented organizational tools intended to increase usability and productivity.

The Manticore Winter 2012 Platform is a powerful and easy-to-use product designed with the marketer in mind. We have taken years’ worth of experience and customer feedback to create a tool that is ahead of the curve in marketing automation solutions and capable of growing uniquely with every user. Furthermore, we have designed the product in such a way that will allow us to bring you the most up-to-date technologies as they emerge.

We are very excited about Winter 2012 and look forward to a year of innovative growth and product development.

 

 

One of my guilty pleasures is to watch ‘The Bachelor’ on Monday nights with my wife.  While it is true that this show may actually decrease your IQ as you watch it, I firmly believe that you can offset the loss of brain cells by making snarky comments about the participants, thus improving your quick wit and comedic timing.  (Plus, we also watch “Downton Abbey”, which makes you smarter just because it's English.)

A few weeks ago, I was preparing for my presentation at the 2^nd Annual Content Marketing Retreat in Langley, WA while enjoying my weekly dose of manufactured “reality show” drama.  My presentation started with a brief discussion of the B2B Buyer’s Journey – the path that buyer’s take when going from lead to satisfied (or dissatisfied) customer.  As I switched my attention back and forth between my presentation and the show, I had a shocking revelation: B2B buyers are exactly like The Bachelor!

How?

• Both start with a large number of choices, B2B buyers with any number of vendors that may or may not meet their needs, The Bachelor with 25 young ladies who may or may not meet his needs.
• Both begin the process with a little research, B2B buyers conducting that research online through websites, The Bachelor in a large cocktail party where he gets a few minutes to gather first impressions about each potential mate.
• At this point, the B2B buyer will likely connect with people like himself on social media, most frequently LinkedIn and Twitter, to get opinions about his potential vendors.  Unfortunately, The Bachelor has to skip this step, as he is isolated during the show taping.  Of course, if he could check social media, he would immediately eliminate the “problem” women and much of the show’s drama would be ruined.
• Both then start creating a short list, the B2B buyer doing that by engaging with the sales people of the vendors he likes best, and The Bachelor doing it through a series of one-on-one and group dates.  Overtime, they both start eliminating those they don’t like or are unsuitable.
• Both then diligently start checking references on their short list.  The B2B buyer does this with calls to other customers and those that have done business with his potential vendors.  The Bachelor does this through visits with his final four “girlfriends” to meet their families and friends.
• Once the final two vendors/potential mates have been selected, it is time to go for approval.  The B2B buyer does this with his management; The Bachelor does this with his parents.
• Finally, it's time to make a decision.  The B2B buyer selects the best vendor and negotiates a contract; while The Bachelor selects the woman he can’t live without and slips a ring on her finger.

There is one final way these two are alike.  Even once they become customers, B2B buyers are still buyers.  Contract lengths are shorter than ever – a year commitment is a long one – and a typical customer will be continuously evaluating his options.  We know from history that The Bachelor is no different – within 6-12 months, he’ll be out looking around for another “perfect” mate!

I liked this analogy so much I decided to use it to kick off my presentation for the retreat, The Customer Path: From Lead Gen to Customer.  If you’re interested in seeing it, click on the title.  It's only 15 minutes and I’m pleased to say the story was well received and got a good laugh.

Next week, I’ll tell you how some of our marketing automation competitors are exactly like Mike “The Situation” from ‘The Jersey Shore’.  (Not really - I don’t think there is any exercise that would repair the brain cells lost from watching that show.)

As B2B buyers leverage Web 2.0 and social media to streamline their purchasing processes, the line between marketing and sales as it relates to prospect interaction becomes blurred. Marketing must take on the early-stage lead/prospect communication that was once the sole responsibility of sales, and frequently the two groups must work together to nurture a buyer from lead to prospect to customer.  While challenging, it is possible to get marketing and sales on the same page.  Below I have outlined three steps that can move your organization towards marketing and sales alignment.

1. Senior Level Support - It is critical to have senior management support for all joint marketing/sales initiatives.  At a minimum, the executive where marketing and sales meet - CEO, President, Chief Revenue Officer, SVP Sales & Marketing - should believe in the joint initiative and foster an environment of cooperation. There are cases where forward thinking marketing and sales executives “get it”, and start working together for their mutual benefit.  Rather than continuing a culture of bickering and finger pointing, they commit to changing ingrained behaviors and working together for the common good.  This is rare, however, so somebody at the top should set the tone and expectation about what needs to be done, even to the point of putting in joint incentives for the sales and marketing heads.  Obviously, working together should yield better results for each of them, but sometimes you need a specific “carrot” to drive the desired behavior.
2. Jointly Map the Marketing/Sales Process – The best way to build trust is to work together on a project that will have both an immediate impact and demonstrate how much each group needs the other.  Both teams should get in a room and use a whiteboard to map the process a buyer takes going from lead to satisfied customer.  This should be done from the buyer’s perspective – what do they experience as they make the decision whether or not to buy your product or service?  Doing so will identify the steps in the buyer’s process where marketing and sales must execute smooth hand offs and where both teams need to work together to nurture the prospect.  Once the process is identified, data can be pulled from the marketing and CRM systems to understand the flow of leads and approximate conversion rates at each stage of the process.  The common ground that is established from marketing and sales having a mutual understanding of how buyers interact with your company is invaluable, and forms the basis for on-going cooperation.
3. Start Streamlining the Marketing/Sales Process – Now that both teams have a clear understanding of how a buyer becomes a customer, it is possible to define a comprehensive program that moves a buyer through that process as efficiently as possible.  It is tempting to try and fix the entire process in one fell swoop.   Don’t do that!  It is better to pick one key area where there is clear interaction between the two groups and optimize it first.  The hand off of marketing qualified leads (MQLs) to sales, for example, is a stage where many companies suffer a great deal of lead leakage. If marketing and sales have different ideas of what constitutes a qualified lead, sales may not follow-up while marketing assumes it no longer has responsibility for nurturing that lead, and the buyer ends up in no man’s land (or worse, as your competitor’s customer).  A simple first step is to agree on the characteristics of a qualified lead that sales will always agree to contact.  Once additional qualifying questions are answered, sales must either accept the lead and actively engage it or send it back to marketing for further nurturing.  This will dramatically reduce lead leakage and lay the foundation for further marketing/sales cooperation on the rest of the overall process.

Getting marketing and sales aligned around a unified buyer engagement process is nirvana for many marketing and sales executives.  Starting small and building on short-term success with visible executive level support will create an environment for long-term cooperation and result in improved sales results.

For more on Sale-Marketing alignment see our Best Practice: Candid Letter from Sales to Marketing.

For many marketers, content and social marketing presents tremendous opportunities, but also some considerable challenges.  We frequently see marketers that get off to a great start, delivering engaging content and participating fully in the social discussion, but run out of steam as they realize that once you start feeding the beast, you can’t slow down.  The best marketers turn to one simple technique to ensure they can keep up with the demands of their audience – leveraging the skills of their entire company.

Frequently, marketers do not realize that there is a bounty of amazing content available right inside their company. When it comes to content development and social media participation, it is important to utilize the strengths of the entire team, as it is entirely possible that a relevant blog post, whitepaper or a podcast could originate from any source within the company.

Ideally, content marketers should create a team of individuals who offer different perspectives from their respective departments. For instance, a developer who has identified a new or interesting way to use your product to solve a specific business problem could be the ideal author of a useful and informative whitepaper.

Unfortunately, this subject matter expert may not necessarily have the writing skills, or time, to sit down and turn it into a finished product. We find that an effective way to tap into this source of knowledge is for your marketing team to create a list of questions for the expert then interview them either on video or audio tape. The original ideas are captured, and once transcribed, a professional writer can turn that interview into an amazing piece of content.

This method is an interesting way to get all kinds of people involved in content creation. At Manticore , we are big believers in recording, transcribing and then editing in order to create relevant, compelling content for use in our overall content marketing effort.  (In fact, this blog post started from a recorded interview.)

The same principals can apply to social media engagement.  Different employees in your company can be given the responsibility to represent the company in different forums based on their area of expertise.  It is important to provide employees with a set of guidelines as to what is appropriate (and not appropriate) to post, but you don’t want to put handcuffs on them that prevents them from doing anything interesting around social networking. They must be allowed to help the company, utilizing the appropriate message and tone. In general, companies need to give people guidelines, provide them with adequate training, and then turn them loose allowing them the trust and freedom to make their own decisions in regard to social media outlets.

In our case, we routinely participate in the various marketing automation forums.  We have a group of people with diverse talents who monitor these groups and participate in the discussion on a regular basis. These are indiviuduals that we fully trust and do not need to monitor their activity. We do not review their answers or put them up for approval. We rely on the training we provided and the choices we made in selecting these employees to represent our company in the social world.

Content creation and social media participation can be overwhelming for the marketing managers responsible for them.  Leveraging non-marketing employees by enabling their participation helps lighten the load and increases the diversity of both your content and your social presence.

For more ideas on content development, see our blog post  “Inspiration for Compelling Content Found in the Simplest of Places”.

Jeff Erramouspe, President of Manticore Technology , and was recently quoted in a DemandGen Report article on the trends around the average selling price of marketing automation solutions and the possible impact for the future of the market.  Following is the complete interview:

As the 2^nd Annual Content Marketing Retreat unfolded, the Langley Center for New Media was like a petri dish for best practices, thought leadership, and revolutionary ideas for content marketing. I was honored to be a speaker (and Manticore Technology a sponsor), joining experts from across the U.S. to present on current issues surrounding content marketing and share case studies and tips on how to maximize various aspects of a successful content marketing campaign. The experience was very enlightening. Personally, I acquired enough knowledge on these two days to fill a book (now there's a content marketing idea), and I wanted to take a minute to share a few key ideas from the retreat that had the biggest impact on me as a B2B marketing entrepreneur.

• Tell stories. Story telling not only creates engaging content, but stories help build rapport with your audience. It is important when building a content marketing campaign to define and construct the story you wish to tell. Your story should create an emotional connection with your audience that turns leads into customers.
• Content curation is an art form.  You don't always have to create original content to be an effective content marketer.  As a curator, your goal is to precisely select the best content to support a story that is meaningful for your audience. Adding to the conversation by collecting the right content is like being a museum curator; you're helping find relevant content your audience wants to see. 
• Content turns customers into advocates.  When your not in the room and someone says something bad about you, will your friends defend you?  If you're a company and the room is the Web, who will come to your defense?  Engaging your customers with good content that delivers on your brand promise will turn them into advocates - and your defenders when you're not in the room.
• Speak to your audience's "wants" not just their "needs". As marketers, we're trained to tell our prospects what and why they need our product.  As Rod Brooks, CMO of Pemco Insurance stated, "People need insurance, it doesn't mean they want to talk about it."  To fully engage your audience, make sure your content talks to their wants, not just their needs.
• Marketers must become publishers. Content marketing requires a steady flow of quality content to be effective.  As such, marketers must adopt content creation, editing and production processes that mimic publishers' processes.  Even more important, marketers must tell compelling stories and really understand what their audiences want to read in order to be effective.

The 2^nd Annual Content Marketing Retreat was a huge success and an exceptional two days of idea sharing and industry best practices for content marketing.  Read more from the speakers at the Content Marketing Retreat here.

Read more about the Content Marketing Retreat here.

After much anticipation, we are pleased to announce Manticore Winter 2012, the latest version of the Manticore marketing automation platform. Winter 2012 is loaded with our latest advancements in marketing automation funcationality. Marketers will be able to take advantage of  customizable features for managing their daily work, reports and marketing assets, as well as a set of powerful email and landing page design capabilities and email testing tools.

The most impressive feature is the brand-new design wizard for emails and landing pages. This tool is unique in that marketers and designers now have their own individual work spaces, ensuring optimal productivity and a minimum of the typical back-and-forth involved in campaign development. For example, a designer has the ability to customize an email template separately and provide that template with specific editable spaces to a marketer for the inclusion of content without the fear that the marketer might accidentally compromise the integrity of the design itself. With this new capability, marketers and designers optimize their time by doing what they do best. The new wizard acts as a set of guardrails, keeping mistakes at a minimum, while still allowing more advanced users to move through it quickly and easily.

Another exciting feature in the new release is the email testing capabilities with Litmus.com. The client preview test allows an email sender to test the aesthetic quality of an email by sending a test email to over 30 different email clients and devices, including the latest mobile phones. Litmus provides snapshots of what the email actually looks like in each of those email clients. Additionally, Litmus provides a spam scoring test, sending an email through various spam traps and filters and providing the sender with either a pass or a fail for each one.

We leveraged six years of marketing automation expertise and in depth customer feedback in the design of this new product. The goal was to ensure the best possible user-experience for the everyday marketer while maintaining our capabilities as a powerful marketing automation platform. In addition to the visible features in this product, we've also done a lot of "under the covers" work that will enable our development team to rapidly innovate and add new features throughout this year and beyond.

We're thrilled about this new release and what is coming, so stay tuned for some exciting new announcements from Manticore Technology in 2012.