Print Still Proving To Be Viable Pipeline Producer for B2B Marketers

By Andrew Gaffney, Editor

Given the digital transformation taking place in media, it is understandable that most marketers are shifting a larger portion of their budgets and emphasis to interactive mediums. However, some marketers are finding print pieces can still be an effective component of an integrated demand generation campaign, particularly when Personalized URLs (PURLs) are attached to drive prospects back to the online environment.

A strong example of integrating print efforts into demand generation is NetQoS, one of the fastest growing network performance management products and service providers. In addition to a mix of white papers, web seminars, case studies, podcasts and demos, the company’s marketing team has been feeding the sales pipeline with leads generated from a custom industry magazine, as well as a stream of print postcards.

“As marketers, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking only new media, but we have found that people are still interested in viable, relevant content in print,” says Pam O’Neal Mickelson, Senior Director of Marketing Communications for NetQoS. That interest in print messaging has translated to real pipeline results, as Mickelson says the print campaigns have generated over $2 million in opportunities for the company.

NetQoS chose to launch its custom publication, Performance Edge Journal, after one of its larger partners decided to fold its magazine and left a void for educational content on networking issues. Published 2x per year, the publication serves as an image builder for the company and also drives readers back to NetQoS’ website to view demos or see special offers. “The magazine is sent with a cover letter inviting readers to visit the site for a special presentation, this allows us to see how many meetings are set as a result of the publication,” Mickelson says.

In addition to the publication, Mickelson says the company has recently begun to test direct mail pieces, utilizing the PrintMail application in the Eloqua Conversion Suite to quickly create, send and track the response to special offers. “Every single mail piece we produce links back to a microsite so we can gauge the response and then use that engagement to send that prospect some more information that moves them to the next phase of the sales funnel.”Mickelson adds that direct mail has served as a valuable sales nurturing tool to reach executives that are not responding to other lead generation vehicles, such as email or telemarketing.

The Eloqua PrintMail application allows marketers to edit text and graphics through a web-based interface. Since PrintMail is integrated with the campaign functions of the company’s Conversion Suite, it also allows marketers to add personal information from active profiles and also include fields for PURLs or other activity-driven content rules.

"Eloqua PrintMail is becoming a popular application with our customers as marketers see solid results from direct mail, especially in multi-channel campaigns,” says Thor Johnson, SVP of Marketing at Eloqua. “It’s as easy as email. With variable content and a personalized URL on every direct mail piece, we track each prospect’s response so marketers can score these leads, act on them and prioritize for sales."

New Lead Solution Uncovered By Editorial Advisory Board

We had the first official gathering of our newly assembled Editorial Advisory Board about a week ago. Representing a variety of sales, marketing and strategy roles, as well as industries, the group presented a variety of pain pointes they were looking to address.
By the group's own admission, the level of expertise in marketing, and more specifically demand generation, also varied widely. However, one common issue members were tackling was building a successful search strategy. Again, the specific needs around search, whether it be Search Engine Optimization or pure Search Engine Marketing, were unique depending on budgets and expertise.
Another common code most marketers are still trying to crack: determining who visits their site and how they got there also was discussed by the group. Karen Heyward, Chief Marketing Officer for IT outsourcing service provider Centerbeam, mentioned an interesting solution provider she had recently started working with called LeadLander.
The San Francisco-based company provides a web-based application that gives your sales staff access to real-time customer intelligence reports which identify the customers hitting your site. The company offers add-on modules which make it easy to integrate the solution with CRM systems including Salesforce.
The product also helps in the lead qualification process by providing customer intelligence on what at a specific customer is looking for by analyzing their search terms. LeadLander also offers a mechanism to automatically deliver leads to your inside sales team.
Based on the active conversation that came out of our first get-together I'm confident other interesting new companies will be uncovered and I will be sure to pass them along.

5 Questions To Consider Before Trying to Measure Marketing Performance

A recent survey revealed that only 40% of B2B technology marketers have a closed-loop process for tracking leads from inquiry to close. With all of the tools available, one would think that this would be a completely buttoned-up process for most technology marketers. Closing the loop is critical to ensuring that not only your company is following up with inquiries, but also helps you allocate your hard earned marketing budget on the best performing programs.

How do you get there? Here are 5 questions you must be able to answer before you start your quest to close the loop:
1. What are the sources for all of your inquiries? Sit down and think of all the possible sources for an inquiry. Make sure to consider all online and offline points of entry.
2. What happens to these inquires? How are they distributed? Added to an Excel file? Sent to a salesperson via an email? If you find yourself stuck here, you are not alone. This may be early in the process, but this is where I see most closed loop processes break down. There is an inconsistent flow of data, through various channels, without a central point of record.
3. What do you want to track/measure? You should consider defining some basic metrics for success, and using those as a standard measure across the enterprise. Here are a few examples for measuring ROI:
a. Cost per inquiry – What is the cost per raw inquiry?
b. Cost per lead – What is the cost per qualified lead?
c. Cost of marketing – What is the cost per opportunity created?
d. Acquisition cost – What is the cost per deal closed?
4. Based on what you want to track, are you capturing the right data? Furthermore, is that data standardized to make reporting easier? Standardize every point of data input. From web forms to manual data entry, make sure the data is input consistently and as completely as possible.
5. Do you have an in-house tool that can help you centralize and manage this process? Can you easily track lead flow from inception, to pipeline, to close? I’m not talking about Excel spreadsheets – you need something much more robust. Seriously consider implementing a CRM system that can help you manage the process.
About the Author:
Kirk Crenshaw is CEO of RevCatalyst, a marketing services company focused on helping growing B2B companies develop, plan, and implement a high quality lead generation operation that sets your sales organization up for success. For more information, visit www.revcatalyst.com or contact Kirk at kirk@revcatalyst.com or via phone at 415.887.7649.