Category Archives: Marketing Operations Strategies
Maybe You Already Have Enough Data for Analytics: Part II: More Insight With Touch Analysis
- 20th May 2013
In my last post, I described marketing touch analysis and how to use this information to “do more of what works, and less of what doesn’t.” Today, I add more variety to the approach and explain how to gain better insight into the effectiveness of your marketing tactics. I promise to keep the rocket science out of this discussion to help you better understand what this stuff is and how it can help you with your work. There are pragmatic ways you can take advantage of these techniques without a staff of scientists.
Continue Reading....Marketing Analytics: Beware the Black Box
- 23rd April 2013
One of the most positive developments in b-to-b marketing is an increased emphasis on data-driven decisionmaking. Growing numbers of marketing organizations are relying more on data and facts to make their decisions. While many organizations are not as far along as they’d like to be, I’m finding that most marketing leaders’ intentions are in the right place. With the desire to get really good at this really fast, marketing organizations are turning to advanced analytical techniques. Marketing leaders are hopeful that easier analytical approaches are right around the corner – if only they could apply the right algorithms to the data they have, they could create more of the insights they need. Advanced analytics offer great potential for b-to-b marketers, but I suggest you watch for three things when considering them.
Continue Reading....Maybe You Already Have Enough Data for Analytics: Marketing Touch Analysis
- 15th April 2013
B-to-b marketers are beginning to analyze the performance of their marketing tactics over time, across segments, personas, geographies and product categories in order to determine tactic effectiveness. The most straightforward approach to this is marketing touch analysis, which tracks the interactions of individuals with marketing tactics on a plotted graph.
Continue Reading....Marketo Files for IPO
- 3rd April 2013
On April 2, marketing automation vendor Marketo filed for a $75 million initial public offering; its ticker symbol on NASDAQ will be MKTO.
Continue Reading....Marketing Stakeholder Analysis Fundamentals
- 2nd April 2013
Stakeholder analysis is the identification and examination of marketing stakeholder interests, influences, expectations and attitudes as they relate to a project (e.g. rollout of a marketing automation platform, standardized marketing reporting or data quality initiative). Its purpose is to understand the political and people-oriented aspects of the project environment, and the processes and functions that impact (or are impacted by) the project. The result is a better understanding of the stakeholders (e.g. interests, relationships), better decisionmaking and greater project acceptance by stakeholders. When undertaking stakeholder analysis, use the following guidelines to obtain optimal results.
Continue Reading....A Modeled Approach to Marketing’s Contribution
- 28th March 2013
As we provide benchmark studies for SiriusDecisions clients, we often see organizations struggle to measure marketing’s contribution to, and influence on, sales pipeline. As a first step toward capturing these key performance indicators, we walk clients through a model that breaks down typical marketing contribution and mix based on three go-to-market strategies: direct enterprise accounts, inside commercial accounts, and small-and-medium-sized business (SMB)/channel accounts.
Continue Reading....Data Measures Activities, Too
- 20th March 2013
Do your marketing reports measure contact activities (e.g. number of contacts generated from a webinar)? Do your marketing tactics use contact activity to generate the target list (e.g. contacts who downloaded certain assets)? Does your scoring model use contact activity to help prioritize leads? If you’re like most marketers, the answer to all these questions is “yes.” Why, then, do most marketing operations teams neglect to include or discuss contact activity data when embarking upon a data quality, data management or data governance project? Why focus only on field-based data?
Continue Reading....Guidelines for Using Fake-Forward Emails
- 8th March 2013
In my last blog, "Fake-Forward Emails: The Pros and Cons", I discussed “fake forward” emails and how perspectives on this marketing tactic vary. Some marketers view fake-forward emails as an unsavory marketing tactic, while others consider them a creative way of breaking through email clutter. In response to the feedback I’ve received, today’s post discusses guidelines to follow when using fake-forward emails.
Continue Reading....Marketing Measurement Snake Oil
- 28th February 2013
The Web is littered with prescriptions for what your marketing measurement needs to be like and look like. There’s way too much bad advice being dispensed from sources that you’d expect to be credible. Whether this advice is well intentioned or simply snake oil, b-to-b marketers need to be able to spot bad measurement advice and reject it. Here are some common flavors.
Continue Reading....Marketing and IT: A Lovefest?
- 19th February 2013
I attended the Marketing Operations Cross Company Alliance (MOCCA) Executive Forum last week in San Francisco. For those of you who are not familiar with this group, it is composed of people in marketing operations leadership roles, primarily in b-to-b companies. True to its Silicon Valley roots, members mostly come from technology companies, although MOCCA’s ranks are growing with companies from other industries. There are two chapters, one based on the West Coast and one in Washington, D.C. We held an interesting Oxford-style debate on the topic of whether the “ownership” of marketing technology should be with IT or the marketing organization. One side took the position that marketing should be the absolute ruler of its technology and IT should butt out, and the opposing position was that IT was far better staffed and equipped to plan, procure and manage technology than marketing.
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