Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Giving Back
While living in Atlanta and working for Accenture, I did a ton of volunteer work for Hands On Atlanta (HOA). HOA is an amazing non-profit organization where "Every day, Hands On Atlanta volunteers serve with more than 400 community-based agencies and schools throughout Atlanta.". Since moving to Boston, I haven't taken the time to give back and that has been concerning me. Well that's changing...
I recently became involved in Taproot Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides pro bono marketing services (strategy, branding, positioning, websites, brochures and annual reports). There are a couple of main things that attracted me to Taproot (1) I can bring marketing expertise to the non-profit sector and have a significant impact in an accelerated time frame, and (2) Taproot has done a phenomenal job of creating step-by-step process methodologies for each of their project types. Being a total project and process "geek" I really appreciate the benefits that a well structured methodology delivers to Taproot, the account directors and the non-profit.
So, I am getting ready to kick-off my first Taproot project as an Account Director. Once I get into the swing of the project I will write another update.
I recently became involved in Taproot Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides pro bono marketing services (strategy, branding, positioning, websites, brochures and annual reports). There are a couple of main things that attracted me to Taproot (1) I can bring marketing expertise to the non-profit sector and have a significant impact in an accelerated time frame, and (2) Taproot has done a phenomenal job of creating step-by-step process methodologies for each of their project types. Being a total project and process "geek" I really appreciate the benefits that a well structured methodology delivers to Taproot, the account directors and the non-profit.
So, I am getting ready to kick-off my first Taproot project as an Account Director. Once I get into the swing of the project I will write another update.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
A SaaS Go-To-Market Segmentation Framework
While SaaS is a relatively new deployment option (since ~1998), it is still governed by the fundamental rules of B2B marketing: understand your customer (research), make sure that you connect with them (lead gen), and then provide them with a value proposition that they can't refuse (product positioning). Sort of like the Godfather movie but without the terminal consequences. It's a terribly summarized overview of B2B marketing, and one that my old marketing professors Kottler and Sawhney would probably raise their eyebrows at, but fundamentally it's true There are however a number of twists in marketing SaaS that distinguish it from traditional SW sales.
To start with, SaaS is just like installed SW in that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Different SaaS applications will appeal to different customer demographics. The functional and technical requirements of a 5 person consulting organization are vastly different from those of a $5B bank. For example, the consulting organization probably does not need LDAP integration while the bank will need LDAP (or equivalent) integration into its security infrastructure. The bank will most likely also willing to pay for process refinements and user training as part of a standardized rollout methodology. The Net Net is that any SaaS go-to-market offering needs to be designed for the specific segments that are being targeted.
(3) Using the Technical Impact / Organizational Impact structure, here is how some existing SaaS players stackup:
(4) Breaking the segmentation up a bit further, you get Three Tiers of SaaS Go-To-Market Options:
(5) SaaS Go To Market Actions By Tier:
*When it comes to compensation, SaaS sales introduce complexity. How do you compensate the salesperson? On the total contact value? On a per sale value? What if you are in Tier 1 and offer a 30 day free trial? Or Tier 2, a 90 day paid pilot? Or Tier 3, a 1 year subscription with a service based cancellation clause? Lot’s of interesting topics for another post.
So, this post has been a bit more extensive than most, but it does give a good idea of the structure that I have defined and implemented at IQ as part of our segmentation and go to market strategy. This structure works for us and there is a good chance that it is flexible enough to work for you. At the very least, it is a starting point for how to do your own segmentation and frame your own strategy.
To start with, SaaS is just like installed SW in that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Different SaaS applications will appeal to different customer demographics. The functional and technical requirements of a 5 person consulting organization are vastly different from those of a $5B bank. For example, the consulting organization probably does not need LDAP integration while the bank will need LDAP (or equivalent) integration into its security infrastructure. The bank will most likely also willing to pay for process refinements and user training as part of a standardized rollout methodology. The Net Net is that any SaaS go-to-market offering needs to be designed for the specific segments that are being targeted.
I have developed the following segmentation framework to analyze and plan a SaaS go-to-market program. Specifically, it is focused on strategic product positioning based on the deployment of the SaaS solution - it does not address any of the tactical marketing / lead generation programs. Also, I am making an assumption that the solution itself is solving a material business problem -- if you are not solving a problem and meeting a need, all the positioning in the world is not going to make a difference.
The following images provide a fairly self explanatory overview of the framework.
(1) Defining the Organizational Impact of the SaaS solution:
(2) Defining the Technical Impactof the SaaS solution:
(3) Using the Technical Impact / Organizational Impact structure, here is how some existing SaaS players stackup:
(4) Breaking the segmentation up a bit further, you get Three Tiers of SaaS Go-To-Market Options:
(5) SaaS Go To Market Actions By Tier: *When it comes to compensation, SaaS sales introduce complexity. How do you compensate the salesperson? On the total contact value? On a per sale value? What if you are in Tier 1 and offer a 30 day free trial? Or Tier 2, a 90 day paid pilot? Or Tier 3, a 1 year subscription with a service based cancellation clause? Lot’s of interesting topics for another post.
So, this post has been a bit more extensive than most, but it does give a good idea of the structure that I have defined and implemented at IQ as part of our segmentation and go to market strategy. This structure works for us and there is a good chance that it is flexible enough to work for you. At the very least, it is a starting point for how to do your own segmentation and frame your own strategy.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Only Possible With SaaS.........
In a couple of my past posts, I pointed out that SaaS is not a one-size-fits-all deployment option. However, I do believe that there are some types of solutions that can only be effectively delivered as a SaaS solution - call it the "SaaS only" option.
Typically, "SaaS only" is applicable when the software/service meets one of four functional criteria:
(1) "SaaS only" solutions require significant deployment and operational resources to be effective. The Celarix logistics visibility service is a good example of this. To achieve supply-chain visibility, you need at least 20 interfaces to logistics providers. Setting-up those interfaces is extremely costly and time-consuming. Managing them going forward is also complicated with hundreds and thousands of inbound transactions every day. With over 300 predefine interface as part of their service, Celarix can provide customers with the visibility they need significantly faster and more cost effectively than any other alternative.
(2) "SaaS only" solutions include data that requires constant updates. There is a brilliant new service being launched that can only be successful in a SaaS model - let's call it LeadDB. It's not the services' real name, but it is still in Beta and under-wraps. IQ is participating in the Beta. LeadDM provides a list purchasing service unlike any others that I have encountered. Once you have logged-in to their service, you can enter your segmentation criteria and they will return target names that meet those criteria. You can then buy specific names one-by-one or in bulk. Fast forward to their new offering - by adding a couple of lines of code to your website, you can receive contact names (that meet your segmentation criteria) for the companies that are visiting your site. Set a monthly budget and distribution rules and each day you will get a list of potential prospects for your lead gen activities. It's a great way to bridge the gap between people that complete our online forms and those that just visit. Given the timeliness of LeadDBs data and the complexity of updating their contact database, there is no way this type of solution would be possible in any model other than SaaS.
(3) "SaaS only" solutions provide information that is only available by aggregating data across their customer base. Google has just rolled-out a new capability in their Analytics tool called Benchmarking. Basically you can use it to benchmark yourself against your peers and see how your site performs in 6 different categories (IQ currently outperforms in 5 of 6 and our next website release should address #6). It would be impossible to do this type of analysis in non-SaaS analytics packages.
(4) "SaaS only" solutions include a value-added component in their service. Constant Contact (CC) is a great example of this. The CC service has a few main components: (1) email creation, (2) list management, and (3) email distribution (with SPAM management, SPAM compliance validation and white listing). Of these components, #3 is most useful to me. I can easily replicate components #1 & #2 using an installed product, but having a level of assurance that my domain won't be black-listed as a spammer is a major benefit. A benefit that CC provides as part of their SaaS model and one that I could not easily replicate.
So, anybody thinking of deploying a new software solution (or re-deploying an existing one) in a SaaS model should really evaluate if their solution meets one of the four "SaaS only" criteria, or if the change is simply a "buzz" driven decision.
Next up is a model for identifying SaaS go-to-market strategies (i.e. marketing, sales, services) based on target customer profiles. Stay tuned.
Typically, "SaaS only" is applicable when the software/service meets one of four functional criteria:
(1) "SaaS only" solutions require significant deployment and operational resources to be effective. The Celarix logistics visibility service is a good example of this. To achieve supply-chain visibility, you need at least 20 interfaces to logistics providers. Setting-up those interfaces is extremely costly and time-consuming. Managing them going forward is also complicated with hundreds and thousands of inbound transactions every day. With over 300 predefine interface as part of their service, Celarix can provide customers with the visibility they need significantly faster and more cost effectively than any other alternative.
(2) "SaaS only" solutions include data that requires constant updates. There is a brilliant new service being launched that can only be successful in a SaaS model - let's call it LeadDB. It's not the services' real name, but it is still in Beta and under-wraps. IQ is participating in the Beta. LeadDM provides a list purchasing service unlike any others that I have encountered. Once you have logged-in to their service, you can enter your segmentation criteria and they will return target names that meet those criteria. You can then buy specific names one-by-one or in bulk. Fast forward to their new offering - by adding a couple of lines of code to your website, you can receive contact names (that meet your segmentation criteria) for the companies that are visiting your site. Set a monthly budget and distribution rules and each day you will get a list of potential prospects for your lead gen activities. It's a great way to bridge the gap between people that complete our online forms and those that just visit. Given the timeliness of LeadDBs data and the complexity of updating their contact database, there is no way this type of solution would be possible in any model other than SaaS.
(3) "SaaS only" solutions provide information that is only available by aggregating data across their customer base. Google has just rolled-out a new capability in their Analytics tool called Benchmarking. Basically you can use it to benchmark yourself against your peers and see how your site performs in 6 different categories (IQ currently outperforms in 5 of 6 and our next website release should address #6). It would be impossible to do this type of analysis in non-SaaS analytics packages.
(4) "SaaS only" solutions include a value-added component in their service. Constant Contact (CC) is a great example of this. The CC service has a few main components: (1) email creation, (2) list management, and (3) email distribution (with SPAM management, SPAM compliance validation and white listing). Of these components, #3 is most useful to me. I can easily replicate components #1 & #2 using an installed product, but having a level of assurance that my domain won't be black-listed as a spammer is a major benefit. A benefit that CC provides as part of their SaaS model and one that I could not easily replicate.
So, anybody thinking of deploying a new software solution (or re-deploying an existing one) in a SaaS model should really evaluate if their solution meets one of the four "SaaS only" criteria, or if the change is simply a "buzz" driven decision.
Next up is a model for identifying SaaS go-to-market strategies (i.e. marketing, sales, services) based on target customer profiles. Stay tuned.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
SaaS, Governance & The IT Bypass
My last SaaS posts were mostly about SaaS from a SW company's strategic perspective. This one is as a SaaS consumer - from the viewpoint of business and IT users.
As a business user, SaaS represents a wonderful opportunity to find and start using new applications that make my job easier. All I need is a credit card, a computer and an internet connect. Great - after 10 minutes I can hit the ground running with my free trial. One monthly price and I have no IT budget hassels (hence the bypass), no servers to install, no backups to worry about and no datacenter costs. Personally, at IQ, I use a variety of SaaS solutions and wouldn't want it any other way. Neither would our technical team - they are too busy building innovative technology. So, for a small to mid-sized business or department of a large organization, the model is cost effective and works well.
The picture is not so rosy for larger IT organizations. Imagine this very real scenario: Mary in accounting needs a better way to organize and store invoices, so she get a SaaS subscription to InvoicesAreUs (a SaaS startup) for herself and 5 other team members. Bob in marketing wants to store his collateral online and make it available to the sales team, so he gets a Google Sites account and creates a quick intranet. Meanwhile, the CIO has just paid $10 million dollars for an enterprise Documentum license. Fast forward 3 months, InvoicesAreUs goes out of business and Bob gets fired? There is suddenly a crisis. Nobody has a record of the invoices, since Mary scanned the hardcopies into InvoicesAreUs and then destroyed them (naturally the InvoicesAreUs database is no longer available); Bob still has access to the online Google Sites since nobody has revoked his authorization (there is no tie-in to a central LDAP or similar security directory); and the CIO suddenly has to figured out why employees are paying monthly fees for something that he has already bought.
Could this fiasco have been avoided? Well, yes with 3 main governance components:
(1) All SaaS purchases must be approved to ensure that there is no overlap with existing or planned systems that the purchaser is unaware of;
(2) All SaaS user accounts must be authenticated against a central LDAP (or similar) directory so that users can have their access to the systems withdrawn;
(3) All SaaS data must be provided on a backup schedule with a mechanism to view and manipulate the data outside of the SaaS application.
So, what's the bottom-line? SaaS can be incredibly useful, valuable and cost effective, but to be successful, SaaS vendors need to support coporate IT's governance and security requirements.
As a business user, SaaS represents a wonderful opportunity to find and start using new applications that make my job easier. All I need is a credit card, a computer and an internet connect. Great - after 10 minutes I can hit the ground running with my free trial. One monthly price and I have no IT budget hassels (hence the bypass), no servers to install, no backups to worry about and no datacenter costs. Personally, at IQ, I use a variety of SaaS solutions and wouldn't want it any other way. Neither would our technical team - they are too busy building innovative technology. So, for a small to mid-sized business or department of a large organization, the model is cost effective and works well.
The picture is not so rosy for larger IT organizations. Imagine this very real scenario: Mary in accounting needs a better way to organize and store invoices, so she get a SaaS subscription to InvoicesAreUs (a SaaS startup) for herself and 5 other team members. Bob in marketing wants to store his collateral online and make it available to the sales team, so he gets a Google Sites account and creates a quick intranet. Meanwhile, the CIO has just paid $10 million dollars for an enterprise Documentum license. Fast forward 3 months, InvoicesAreUs goes out of business and Bob gets fired? There is suddenly a crisis. Nobody has a record of the invoices, since Mary scanned the hardcopies into InvoicesAreUs and then destroyed them (naturally the InvoicesAreUs database is no longer available); Bob still has access to the online Google Sites since nobody has revoked his authorization (there is no tie-in to a central LDAP or similar security directory); and the CIO suddenly has to figured out why employees are paying monthly fees for something that he has already bought.
Could this fiasco have been avoided? Well, yes with 3 main governance components:
(1) All SaaS purchases must be approved to ensure that there is no overlap with existing or planned systems that the purchaser is unaware of;
(2) All SaaS user accounts must be authenticated against a central LDAP (or similar) directory so that users can have their access to the systems withdrawn;
(3) All SaaS data must be provided on a backup schedule with a mechanism to view and manipulate the data outside of the SaaS application.
So, what's the bottom-line? SaaS can be incredibly useful, valuable and cost effective, but to be successful, SaaS vendors need to support coporate IT's governance and security requirements.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Nucleus Research misses the mark on Saas vs ASP
I have been an interested reader of the Nucleus Research's studies since they launched. For the most part their analysis is insightful and balanced but they really missed the mark in their "Hosted versus on-demand" study.
http://nucleusresearch.com/research/notes-and-reports/hosted-versus-on-demand/
If you have ready any of my other posts on Software as a Service (SaaS), you will realize that I consider SaaS to be a strong business model and a great deployment option, but I do not consider it to be the best model or the death of SW as we know it. It will be a delivery model, but not the only delivery model available. Yes, this runs contrary to a lot of pundits (like Nucleus Research), but let's face it - there are a variety of attributes that make a product successful in a SaaS model, while there are other attributes that would make it less successful. For example, highly integrate applications are not well suited to SaaS given volumes, latency, etc. On the other hand, services with additional value-add components like GSX / Celarix or Constant Contact are perfectly suited. Also, hell will freeze over before government entities and a lot of large organizations use SaaS as the only delivery model for their applications. There are just too many compliance, legal and security issues that they would have to overlook or ignore to make it feasible. For many organizations, economics is also not a good reason - the US Government and Fortune 100 companies each have significant enough data center expertise and economies of scale that very few, if any, SaaS providers can compare to.
Most importantly, just providing a solution in a "multi-tenant architecture" is not enough justification for a SaaS model. Multi-tenant architectures work well, that is how we deployed Celarix, but they also have downsides (which Nucleus forgot to mention). Everybody has to get upgraded at the same time, regardless of organizational change management impacts or interfacing issues. If the application is down or performing slowly, everybody is impacted. I have experienced these issues at Celarix (fortunately very seldom). At IQ, our applications are provided either on-site or on-demand (ASP / SaaS). Each customer gets their own virtual instance of their application run from a cluster of blade servers. The cost economics work well AND the customers can define their own backup, interfacing and security requirements. The choice of deployment option is up to our customers (which is where it should be).
At IQ we use a variety of SaaS solutions such as ADP, ConstantContact and GoToMeeting amongst others. Each of these solutions deliver financial value - I don't need to get servers, communication lines setup or IT resources involved. Each of these solutions also deliver unique business value (e.g. ConstantContact takes care of message delivery and SPAM compliance), but that doesn't mean all applications deliver additional benefit from a SaaS model. That I believe is the fundamental issue I have with Nucleus' report - software that delivers unique value as a SaaS solution should be delivered as one. Otherwise give the customer a choice.
http://nucleusresearch.com/research/notes-and-reports/hosted-versus-on-demand/
If you have ready any of my other posts on Software as a Service (SaaS), you will realize that I consider SaaS to be a strong business model and a great deployment option, but I do not consider it to be the best model or the death of SW as we know it. It will be a delivery model, but not the only delivery model available. Yes, this runs contrary to a lot of pundits (like Nucleus Research), but let's face it - there are a variety of attributes that make a product successful in a SaaS model, while there are other attributes that would make it less successful. For example, highly integrate applications are not well suited to SaaS given volumes, latency, etc. On the other hand, services with additional value-add components like GSX / Celarix or Constant Contact are perfectly suited. Also, hell will freeze over before government entities and a lot of large organizations use SaaS as the only delivery model for their applications. There are just too many compliance, legal and security issues that they would have to overlook or ignore to make it feasible. For many organizations, economics is also not a good reason - the US Government and Fortune 100 companies each have significant enough data center expertise and economies of scale that very few, if any, SaaS providers can compare to.
Most importantly, just providing a solution in a "multi-tenant architecture" is not enough justification for a SaaS model. Multi-tenant architectures work well, that is how we deployed Celarix, but they also have downsides (which Nucleus forgot to mention). Everybody has to get upgraded at the same time, regardless of organizational change management impacts or interfacing issues. If the application is down or performing slowly, everybody is impacted. I have experienced these issues at Celarix (fortunately very seldom). At IQ, our applications are provided either on-site or on-demand (ASP / SaaS). Each customer gets their own virtual instance of their application run from a cluster of blade servers. The cost economics work well AND the customers can define their own backup, interfacing and security requirements. The choice of deployment option is up to our customers (which is where it should be).
At IQ we use a variety of SaaS solutions such as ADP, ConstantContact and GoToMeeting amongst others. Each of these solutions deliver financial value - I don't need to get servers, communication lines setup or IT resources involved. Each of these solutions also deliver unique business value (e.g. ConstantContact takes care of message delivery and SPAM compliance), but that doesn't mean all applications deliver additional benefit from a SaaS model. That I believe is the fundamental issue I have with Nucleus' report - software that delivers unique value as a SaaS solution should be delivered as one. Otherwise give the customer a choice.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Wow!!! What a brilliant philanthropic idea.
While reading the March edition of Fortune, I came across Kiva, a philanthropic "company" that is truly brilliant. I am seldom wowed by an innovative concept or business but this has been a good week. First I stumbled across Mint (http://www.mint.com/) to manage personal finances, and now Kiva.
Using a network of Micro finance organizations, Kiva enables individuals to fund specific entrepreneurs around the world. I liked the idea so much that I have just invested in a handfull of individuals. Not only is the Kiva concept impressive, but so is their execution - everything from their homepage through loan payment is well done.
A couple of paragraphs on this blog cannot do the concept or organization justice -visit http://www.kiva.org/ to learn more and participate. You can also click the banner link on the side of this blog - it's not advertising, just a way for more people to get involved.
Become a loaner - I did.
Using a network of Micro finance organizations, Kiva enables individuals to fund specific entrepreneurs around the world. I liked the idea so much that I have just invested in a handfull of individuals. Not only is the Kiva concept impressive, but so is their execution - everything from their homepage through loan payment is well done.
A couple of paragraphs on this blog cannot do the concept or organization justice -visit http://www.kiva.org/ to learn more and participate. You can also click the banner link on the side of this blog - it's not advertising, just a way for more people to get involved.
Become a loaner - I did.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Nicholas Carr Grades Out At A "B"
I recently read an interview with Nicholas Carr of "Does IT Matter?" fame. His general position, is that as Utility Computing takes-off, IT will become redundant.
http://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/Expert-Voices/Nicholas-Carr-Why-IT-Will-Change/
All in all, I think that he is going for headlines rather than taking into account the distinction between "powering IT assets" versus "delivering computing resources and applications". Powering IT assets has already changed, and IT organizations already use external providers to "power" their technical operations.
Using IQ as an example, our SaaS offering is used by a variety of Fortune 1000 customers and we run it from a third-party data center. In each of the sales to these customers, an IT representative had to bless the deal, knowing full well that they are 2 degrees removed from the actual applications. From an internal perspective, our production websites are run by a specialized service provider as virtual instances. I would much prefer to have them take on the responsibility for bandwidth and HW capacity provisioning.
In each of these examples, the production assets are managed by an IT operations group. So, the staffing of these IT resource may shift somewhat from service users (i.e. business users) to service providers (i.e. grid computing providers), but they are not going away.
http://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/Expert-Voices/Nicholas-Carr-Why-IT-Will-Change/
All in all, I think that he is going for headlines rather than taking into account the distinction between "powering IT assets" versus "delivering computing resources and applications". Powering IT assets has already changed, and IT organizations already use external providers to "power" their technical operations.
Using IQ as an example, our SaaS offering is used by a variety of Fortune 1000 customers and we run it from a third-party data center. In each of the sales to these customers, an IT representative had to bless the deal, knowing full well that they are 2 degrees removed from the actual applications. From an internal perspective, our production websites are run by a specialized service provider as virtual instances. I would much prefer to have them take on the responsibility for bandwidth and HW capacity provisioning.
In each of these examples, the production assets are managed by an IT operations group. So, the staffing of these IT resource may shift somewhat from service users (i.e. business users) to service providers (i.e. grid computing providers), but they are not going away.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Sharpening The Saw Ends In Spider Webs
An old mentor of mine has always preached that life is a journey and that you need to constantly "keep your saw sharp", implying that periodically you need to pick your head up from the grindstone and learn about evolving strategies, trends and techniques. Given the incredible pace in which options for marketing promotions [Kotler's P #4] are evolving, his advice is an absolute requirement to be effective.
Over the last couple of months [mostly between Xmas and New Years] I did a deep dive into the most current thinking on SEM and SEO. Gotta love Marketing Sherpa, Marketing Experiments, vendor white papers and easy access to thousands of online opinions. Well, it was encouraging to see that the techniques we have been using at IQ are current and in some cases "leading edge". We have moved beyond focused website optimization and scoring, landing page testing, conversion tracking and lead nurturing.
I see one 'gap' in current online practices.....current B2B approaches seem to be focused on either Instant Gratification or Long-term Nurturing. There is very little attention on the step after Instant Gratification but before actual sales team engagement. For IQ, given our sales cycle, a sales person is always involved in the purchasing process. So, let's compare a Typical B2B Lead Capture Best Practise (current IQ approach) to what I will call a Spider Web (potential IQ approach).
Typical B2B Lead Capture Best Practise
Over the last couple of months [mostly between Xmas and New Years] I did a deep dive into the most current thinking on SEM and SEO. Gotta love Marketing Sherpa, Marketing Experiments, vendor white papers and easy access to thousands of online opinions. Well, it was encouraging to see that the techniques we have been using at IQ are current and in some cases "leading edge". We have moved beyond focused website optimization and scoring, landing page testing, conversion tracking and lead nurturing.
I see one 'gap' in current online practices.....current B2B approaches seem to be focused on either Instant Gratification or Long-term Nurturing. There is very little attention on the step after Instant Gratification but before actual sales team engagement. For IQ, given our sales cycle, a sales person is always involved in the purchasing process. So, let's compare a Typical B2B Lead Capture Best Practise (current IQ approach) to what I will call a Spider Web (potential IQ approach).
Typical B2B Lead Capture Best Practise
- Marketing campaign run [online / offline]
- Prospect is sent to a landing page with analytics tracking
- Landing page has a focused call-to-action (CTA)
- Prospect enters their information
- Prospect information is added to CRM system [lead scoring may happen]
- [Instant Gratification]
- Screen shows a "thank-you somebody will be in-touch" message
- The End
- Marketing campaign run [online / offline]
- Prospect is sent to a landing page with analytics tracking
- Landing page has a focused call-to-action (CTA)
- Prospect enters their information
- Prospect information is added to CRM system [lead scoring may happen]
- [Enter The Spider Web]
- Screen shows a "thank-you" message + contextually relevant additional information for the user to click-on / learn more about
- The End
What's the big difference between Spider Webs versus Typical B2B Lead Capture Best Practises? Maybe the following points can illustrate them:
1. When a prospect lands on a landing page, the message is tuned to where they are coming from (i.e. what campaign were they targeted with? what keyword did they click on?)
2. Once they have entered their information into your online capture form, you have additional knowledge of who they are (i.e. role, organization size, geography, etc.).
3. With this additional information, contextual content can be presented, engaging the prospect to learn more and to be better informed, ideally accelerating the sales cycle once the sales person speaks to them. For example, a person that self-identifies themselves as working for a manufacturing company, will be presented with a manufacturing specific case study.
Spider Webs are nothing more than a concept of mine but I feel strongly that success comes to those who innovate [and work bloody hard]. My IQ team still needs to refine how we implement and test the Spider Web concept, but the bottom-line goal is increasing the efficiency of our marketing campaigns. Test data will quickly identify whether it is a worthwhile concept or not.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Google - the amazing perpetual revenue engine
Google is truly an amazing revenue generator. In the last six months, our PPC advertising costs on select key-words have risen almost 300%. So, in order for a specific key-word to show on the first page of search results in positions 3 - 10 we are now paying $3.50 per click versus ~$1.20 in July 2007.
The cost increase can be attributed to Google's AdWord tools that prompt advertisers to optimize their campaigns and increase their positioning. Typically, all this means is that you need to increase your per word spend. Each time an advertiser optimizes their campaign, all other advertisers in the category suddenly need to re-optimize theirs. To add insult to injury, the optimized results are typically broad matches with inefficient campaign structures. A bit of a vicious and expensive cycle.
From a business standpoint, the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of Google AdWords is starting to go down. Given Google's higher CPC we have begun to shift advertising $$$ to other vendors and other mediums. While there are oversight and reporting costs of managing campaigns across multiple engines and mediums, financially it makes sense. Over time, I would expect a similar reaction from other advertisers. There is no such thing as a perpetual motion engine and given the alternatives, I don't expect Google to become a perpetual revenue engine either.
The cost increase can be attributed to Google's AdWord tools that prompt advertisers to optimize their campaigns and increase their positioning. Typically, all this means is that you need to increase your per word spend. Each time an advertiser optimizes their campaign, all other advertisers in the category suddenly need to re-optimize theirs. To add insult to injury, the optimized results are typically broad matches with inefficient campaign structures. A bit of a vicious and expensive cycle.
From a business standpoint, the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of Google AdWords is starting to go down. Given Google's higher CPC we have begun to shift advertising $$$ to other vendors and other mediums. While there are oversight and reporting costs of managing campaigns across multiple engines and mediums, financially it makes sense. Over time, I would expect a similar reaction from other advertisers. There is no such thing as a perpetual motion engine and given the alternatives, I don't expect Google to become a perpetual revenue engine either.
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