SEM Tips -- What I Learned about Internet Marketing

Today I attended a Chicago AMA seminar about Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and thought I'd share a couple tidbits about it. I don't know if I'll get in trouble for sharing this, but the presentation PowerPoint and the promise of useful SEM links can be found at www.chicagoama.org/sem.

Jim Lecinski, the Midwest Director of Google was the keynote speaker. Jim gave an overview of Google and then provided some cool tools that I wasn't previously aware of. He led off by asking everyone in the room, "Who has used Google Search in the last 24 hours." Everyone but two people put their hand up. But Jim was quick to point out that Google isn't in the search business, they are in the "connections" business. According to him, "Google connects consumers to all the information they care about." That's evident in things like Gmail, GoogleMaps, the recent acquisition of YouTube, etc...

What I got most out of Jim's keynote was a bunch of interesting facts:

• During the average month, 6.8 billion searches occur
• 49% of moms age 18-49 have watched a video in the past 7days
• 77% of adults are online
• The average person consumes 14 hours of televison per week AND spends 14 hours online

And some interesting tools:

• Google Trends -- A Google Tool that allows you to see the popularity of a search term over a selected period. This helps if you are considering purchasing a Google Ad and want to know its popularity. It's also fun to play with. Here, I found out that searches for chicken are much more popular than turkey, except in November. And here, I found out that the White Sox suddenly became much more popular than the Cubs in October of 2005.
• Google Blog Search -- Find out what the blogosphere is saying about your product, company, or industry. This product is similar to Technorati, but it seemed easier to use. Just for kicks I wanted to see what my name would yield. Guess I'm not as popular as I had hoped.
• Google Analytics -- Ever curious about who was visiting your website? What search terms they were using to find you? How long they stayed? I can't vouch for the quality of this tool but it appears that Google is providing a website anayltics tool for free. Most web analytics can cost thousands of dollars a year. I was estatic when I found the tool we use for our website, Hitslink.com, was only 9.95 to 19.95 per month. I'm not ready to leave Histlink because they work wonderfully, but I can't say I'm not tempted to check Google Analytics out.

Cary Pearlman from eClick Performance then presented on how to get Search Engine Marketing in a business. He had some good tips and seemed to really know his stuff. Pretty basic, but since the crowd was mid to upper level marketers, anything more technical would have been over our heads. I encourage you to check out the PowerPoint on the AMA site and if you have more questions I would direct you to eClick's site.

One last thing that I found very interesting. During the Q&A portion someone asked Jim, from Google, about click fraud, citing a New York Times article that estimated that 10-15% of clicks are fradulent. Now bearing in mind that this is a MAJOR issue for Google, I looked forward to hearing Jim's answer. He totally botched it, seeming defensive and somewhat angry that the question was even asked. I believe that Google is doing a good job of monitoring and remimbursing for click fraud, but they way he handled the question made me a little nervous. Does Google have a good grasp on click fraud and do they truly have effective ways to combat it?

Luckily Cary swooped in and provided a much better answer, "Click fraud is essentially budget dust. You have to ask yourself, 'Is this PPC program working?' If it is, then you can accept the small portion of fraud that occurs. You can't stop doing PPC because of click fraud. If the program is making you money then you just write click fraud off as a loss and continue forward."

That's the position I agree with and it was very well put. I feel like you accept that not all of your direct mail pieces are going to get to the right people, why not with PPC advertising. You're going to have some waste to it. Either way though the answer by Jim kind of left me with a sour taste in my mouth. Not the best way to leave a seminar.

We'll be back to CRM next week. I couldn't resist posting my thoughts.

Four Levels to Lead Management: Closing the Loop on Marketing Campaigns

Businessman John Wanamaker has been quoted as saying, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." Ever feel like you're in the same boat with your entire marketing budget?

A recent IDC report, "CMO Advisory Best Practices Series: Marketing's Lead Management Process," details what happens when you don't have a good feel for where your best leads are coming from. Like Wanamaker, people know something is working, but they don't know exactly what, and aren't entirely sure of how to figure it out. CRM Magazine explains:

"The report finds that although 50 percent of marketing investment is allocated to demand generation, many companies still lack the set process necessary to understand its effectiveness, a crucial step in reaching the lead management holy grail: complete loop closure."

Spending money without understanding effectiveness is a dangerous game, but you don't have to play it. By using CRM software you can easily build processes to close the loop. It's a tall mountain to climb, but if you start at the bottom and keep at it, you'll get to the holy grail of complete loop closure. Here's my advice on conquering the four levels of lead management:

1.) Measure Campaign Response Rates

This is the most basic measurement you can do and fortunately for marketers can be done completely within the marketing department. Even if you aren't doing A/B Testing for your campaigns, if you gather data on enough campaigns you can soon come to conclusions such as, "Internet Banner Ads are more effective than Yellow Pages" or "Postcards promoting a holiday discount are more effective than postcards promoting just our expertise."

Those insights are good, but they aren't necessarily indicative of future sales. For that you'll need to align yourself with sales, a difficult, but very necessary partnership. Michael Gerard, of IDC, explains:

"...sales and marketing must become more closely aligned both from a strategy perspective and during the lead hand off. 'We see marketing and operations working closer together as one of the key ways companies have strived toward improving that alignment.' The report cites that this union will improve lead transfer process, lead capacity planning, and lead attendance process."

2.) Tie Sales Opportunities to a Lead Source

When I use the word Opportunity, I mean an entity in your CRM system that indicates a potential sale. So, any potential sale should instantly be tagged with a lead source, whether it came from a direct mail piece, a Yellow Pages ad, cold calling, etc... When that sale is made, you can track it back to the lead source. The marketing team should then be able to collect that data and see trends such as, "50% of business came from direct mail, 25% from an advertisement..."

You have your response rates and you have a good idea of what lead sources brought in the most business. You're getting closer to knowing where to most effectively allocate next year's budget, but it would be better still to....

3.) Tie Sales Opportunities to Specific Campaigns

Even better than knowing what type of campaign the lead came from is knowing the exact campaign it came from. Seems like the logical next step, but it adds a degree of difficulty that not everyone wants to take on. Only you can determine if the challenge is worth it, but if you can tie specific sales to specific campaigns, you will no longer be performing educated guesses about the success of your marketing campaigns. You will know for sure and can plan accordingly.

4.) Complete, Sortable Feedback from Sales

If you are able to gather the previous levels of feedback, you have essentially closed the lead loop and reached your goal, but I think you can ask for even more. The previous levels involve gathering feedback on activities that the marketing department has already performed. You get answers to, "What happened with what we did?" but not necessarily, "What should we do in the future?"

Sales can provide detailed information that allows marketing to be more forward looking and better able to target potential prospects. Answering questions such as,"Why are people buying our product?" or "Why are people choosing a competing service?" can help you with future messaging. Answering questions such as, "What type of lead goes the furthest in the sales process?" or "What type of lead closes more often?" can help you in marketing to the right people.

Needed Advice for Marketing with CRM -- Get Involved

For any marketing department, a CRM implementation can seem overwhelming, but in order for you to handle it, you have to get involved. Su Doyle from Marketing Profs provides some good advice in CRM Reporting and the Wrench in the Lead Machine. The basic message is, don't just wait on the sidelines. Get involved and stay involved to have your needs addressed.

Her first recommendation sets the tone:

"Get Marketing on the CRM steering committee—if it's not already

"Most CRM deployment projects are driven by the sales team. Marketers need to be involved up front to define the systems, the project plan, and measurement criteria. Don't be blind-sided by a report or a major release you don't know about. And make sure your team gets the consulting, training, and marketing automation capability you need to be effective."

Sales driven CRM implementations are very common, and the marketing department seems to be content to allow it to remain that way. Even when we push for marketing participation, some clients are still reluctant to participate in that area. CRM can have immense benefits for marketing, but only if marketing steps up and explains what they need. Communication is crucial.

Doyle continues on to emphasize staying involved and keeping in constant communication. She has a bunch of good insights on what to be aware of as a marketer using CRM. It's well worth your time to take a read. CRM Reporting and the Wrench in the Lead Machine can be found here.
 

CRM Mobility with BlackBerry WebCast -- February 13

If you missed the CRM BlackBerry seminars that recently toured the country, Sage Software is giving you another chance to gather the information -- this time over the internet. Sage Software and Research in Motion are again teaming up to discuss Mobile CRM on the BlackBerry. You can register for the event here.

Mobile CRM Roadshow Webcast
Tuesday, February 13
2-3:30 PM CDT
Register

As for the actual seminars, I think they went very well. Speaking from my personal experience in Chicago, we had a little over 100 people show up, a testament to the demand for mobile CRM. Of the participants I talked to, most indicated they had a sales force with mobile devices, such as a BlackBerry. The time that could be saved by accessing CRM information on those devices rather than waiting for a laptop to boot up would greatly increase user acceptance. That's something every CRM system administrator strives for. So the demand is clearly there, the benefits recognized, and it appears the technology ready.

SalesLogix, for the time being, appears to have a clear lead over the competition in terms of CRM on a mobile device. Based on the demand in the market place, I can only assume other CRM firms will begin putting more time into mobile development, but for the time being SalesLogix has the lead.

SalesLogix has three distinct advantages over the competition -- Persistent Data, Easy Customization, and Integration with Phone & Email.

By far the biggest advantage over the competition is SalesLogix's persistent data, or the fact that your CRM data is directly imported into the device. Most CRM mobility products have to go out to the internet to collect the CRM data every time you request it. Peristent data allows you access to the information faster and in cases when you don't have online accessability, such as on a plane. Besides those advantages the whole user experience is better. Have you tried to surf the web on a mobile device? It works, but certainly you'd rather deal with an application directly on your device. That's how SalesLogix designed their tool.

That's the biggest advantage, but SalesLogix also provides a good tool to customize the screens as well as direct integration with existing phone and email. The demo featured a variety of customizations, and each was done relatively easy with some simple drag and drop and renaming. It also directly integrated the email and calling technologies of the existing BlackBerry software. You weren't using a different email program to send from CRM, and when you got an incoming message, you could easily record it in the notes and history. In short it worked, and it seemed the group in attendance was impressed.

BlackBerry, for their part, was equally impressive as the platform of choice for mobile CRM. Andrew Vardon, of RIM, spoke of how BlackBerry was the leader in mobile CRM and wowed with this fact:

"A recent Aberdeen study indicated that 89% of companies surveyed use BlackBerry as a platform to support Mobile CRM and SFA."

If you'd like to see some of these ideas online, I advise you check it out at the webcast I mentioned above. Registration is required and can be done so here.