I subscribe to the view that marketing and sales together have to work to grow the revenue for any organization.  Over at Revenue Journal, Kirstan Zhivago articulated very succinctly that a new breed of  Chief Conversion Officer (CCO) is  needed to drive the company’s top line revenue.  She argues that one person needs to be responsible not for just sales or just marketing but rather (just) conversion to guide the efforts of all groups towards the one goal of conversion and empower them to make the tough decisions and get rid of the road blocks.

I love this philosophy, but how does that apply in the organization and who is responsible for each piece. To bring it into sharper focus, let’s meld two concepts together: Zhivago’s “marketing VP” with a conversion funnel.  The conversion funnel is different than a lead or opportunity funnel as it extends the traditional sales funnel to include all of marketing activities right up to the earliest touch point.  To keep things simple, I am only going to divide the funnel into three parts:

1. At the top of the funnel is purely marketing activities that includes both inbound, [webinars, blogs, social media] and more traditional outbound lead generation techniques [tradeshows, e-mail newsletters, direct mail, etc. ] that drive acquisition.
2. The bottom of the funnel is where conversion happens as salespeople engage in conversations with prospects to provide information, over come objections and build trust through stories and shared experiences.
3. And my favorite part: everything in between or as I like to call it,  No man’s land.  This is the arena of persuasion and traditionally where sales and marketing  point the fingers.  Typically this portion of the funnel is punctuated with questions like “Where are the warm leads?” from sales, “Why wasn’t that lead follow-up?” from marketing or disagreements over what was qualified.



With the kind permission of Jim Sterne, one of the more interesting ways I have seen funnel shapes visually expressed is as bar glassware.  The highest conversion rate starts with driving targeted visitors, further dividing them into segments, persuading them with the right message and converting them with the right sales or shopping cart process.

So how do you over come the problems with finger pointing and poor execution that is normally associated with the middle part of the funnel and drive the right kind of conversion shape?

There is no silver bullet that is going to solve all the problems but an organization focused on conversion and driven by a single individual compensated accordingly is a strong start.  The keys to success are strategies and tools that smooth the transitions between job functions and IT systems.

Having set the stage and quickly running out of room in this post, in future entries I will look at the role of a CCO starting at the top of the conversion funnel and explore strategies, tools and hand offs as they apply to each stage.

Up here in Canada, we’re hockey freaks.  Simply put.  Before going any further, I want to acknowledge that finally (and I mean finally!) I can bridge my passion for hockey with online marketing… sort of.  I’ve long wondered if I would ever get the chance to talk hockey in an e-Commerce blog and today, it’s now a reality.

Which leads me to a question: Do you know who Mark Gullet is?  No?  Alright, how about Mark Gullet from Tampa, Florida?  Still nothing?  That’s okay.  I didn’t know of him either, until 24 hours ago – thanks YouTube.

Regrettably, Mark is one of millions who’ve recently lost his job due to economic woes and organizational restructuring.  The only reason I even know his name is because he worked as VP of Marketing for the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning – yes, this is the hockey tie-in – and because it’s the latest viral YouTube phenomenon made by Ben Gullet, Mark’s son.

A viral job search missing the mark? You tell me.

Upon being laid off after more than 9 years of service for the Lightning hockey club, Ben created a video tribute highlighting his father’s professional strengths and experience with large cue cards and sappy music to help his father find employment.  Ben’s video hit YouTube on March 12th and two weeks later, the video has been seen more than 100,000 times and resulted in numerous job interviews (apparently).

This 14 year old wiz may have a future in internet marketing too (although I’m not convinced his father didn’t have a larger hand in this).  The video’s call to action is engaging and convicting: visit a micro-site featuring his dad’s resume.  I already feel for the guy, so OK, you got me.  I’ll click on the site.  Before you worry about being replaced by the up-and-coming-internet-genius, Ben Gullet, I’ve got good news for you: The plan isn’t flawless and stumbles in the same ways many websites and landing pages do.  If you agree with me, I’ll see to it that you keep your job.  Scouts honor.

MarkbyBen.com features the infamous video, filling the entire front page and then some.  Scrolling below the video reveals a tiny link to Mark’s resume.

But wasn’t the goal of the site to display the resume for anyone and everyone?  Why create any unnecessary barriers by hiding it below the video at the bottom of the page?  And normally, I wouldn’t make a nit-picky comment like “this site doesn’t even have any analytics” – but wouldn’t 100,000+ YouTube plays in two weeks merit it?  Finally, I’m surprised there’s no visible email address or way to connect with Mark.  Sure, you can leave a message through YouTube, but why make it difficult for potential recruiters, contacts and hiring managers to contact you?

The battle certainly doesn’t end once the visitor gets to your site – something I think we see too often in online marketing.  I fully believe that’s when the battle begins and in this case, where the viral job search falls short.  Driving traffic is great, but what happens when visitors arrive to your site?  MarkbyBen.com serves as a great example of time, effort and money invested, yet falls short of the most important aspect: creating a connection with the visitor and getting something out of their visit.  One of the keys to sucess on this site and any other: reduce any and all barriers that block the original goal of the website.  MarkbyBen.com should have Mark’s resume front and center, clear call-to-actions and a visible email address/LinkedIn profile link.  The site should have additional information about him that his resume and large cue-cards don’t speak to.  Much like any online marketer, Mark’s got one shot at a first impression and may be his only shot at converting the visitor.  Removing those barriers should be the first step towards a better site experience and ultimately, make Mark’s job search successful… or not missing the Mark.   But if Mark were a company, the next step should be web personalizaiton to better engage his vistiors.

Put your hands up if you’ve seen or heard a conversation about social media today.  Week after week I postulate if social media is at its peak.  And week after week I’m wrong.  I’m not sure when this streak will end either.  Reminds me of Tim Horton’s roll-up-the-rim… except I’m only kidding myself until May.  With this social media thing, it could be a while.

Note to our American friends: roll-up-the-rim is a Tim Horton’s annual promotion Canadians cannot get enough of.

And here we are – 2009, social media this, social media that.   Can you imagine the look a 15 year old kid might give you if you told him/her that Facebook didn’t exist 20 years ago?  Actually, can you imagine our own faces?  We’ve all become increasingly reliant on social media in one way or another.   Many of us are finding our personal and professional Facebooks, LinkedIns, Myspaces and Twitters intersecting.  I blame smartphones, but that’s another conversation altogether.

Here’s the thing with social media.  Number one, we’re all self-professed ‘experts’ with social media, yet don’t have the control we think we have.  And two, as good as we think we are with social media, today’s kids are quickly becoming better.

Think about it.  We’re all trying to find ways to integrate social media into branding, campaigns, sales, etc… but kids aren’t.  For many kids and youth, social media has forever been a part of life.  They’ll use it more naturally and probably in ways us, the good expert, will never think of.

Scary?  Us ‘experts’ should really figure out a Plan B.

My biggest gripe with social media?  Limited ability to personalize, customize and tailor appearances.  We as marketers have embraced social media, but social media hasn’t embraced us.  Everyone from Skittles to Coca-Cola is using social media for all sorts of reasons and experiments.  And despite this, we can’t even brand our Twitter and Facebook pages properly.  Social media is all about self promotion, expression and information sharing, but they aren’t sharing.  Instead it’s “you can put your logo in this 200×300 space on the left hand side and your choice of background is blue.”

Look no further than the Skittles phenomenon we’ve nearly forgotten about.   We know the Skittles colors (especially since we all bought a pack or two after their infamous experiment), but each social media site didn’t really reflect the company and product like it could and should have.  How cool would a red Skittles Facebook page look?  Certainly better than blue.

Every time a new social media application pops up, the first thing analysts, experts and everyone else says is “I don’t see potential for a revenue model.”  This is the perfect opportunity for Facebook, Myspace and Twitter (especially Twitter!) to do just that.  How much more valuable would your fan page be if you could have it reflect your company, brand and online marketing strategies?  Brand Managers have slaved to ensure the colors and messaging are perfect.  Social media is about sharing information and for businesses, is a great opportunity to act as an extension of your website, banner ads and wacky commercials.  If your colors are red and white (random example), what differentiates your page from a competitors?  Or Andy’s Local Fish & Cactus Store?  And seriously, would it be that hard to accommodate?  The only other question is would you, the marketer be willing to pay for that kind of personalization?

My name is Kevin and I have a social media problem.   Now if you’ll excuse me, I have several notifications to attend to and I need to create a viral marketing strategy based around Twitter.

Many clients have asked me what the best day of the week is to send their email. According to the Retail Email Year-End Trends for 2008, a reportlet by Chad White and Smith Harmon, the most popular days for retailers to send email in 2008 was Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.

That is great information to know, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are the right days for you to send. First of all, if everyone starts to send on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, that means that our inboxes will be overloaded on those days and the chances of your email being overlooked will be greater.

My second point is that even though these reports do have good information that we should all take into account, the data is pretty broad-based and doesn’t always reflect what happens in your business. At the end of the day, the only way you will really know what day is best for you to send is to do some testing. Why not segment your list into 7 parts and send the same email to one segment per day for one week?  After the week has passed, take a look at your reports and see which day had the best results. That is YOUR best day for email marketing.

Of course, if you are one of our clients you can take advantage of SilverPOP’s ability to send to each recipient based on their preferred time. This more personalized approach will send an email to a recipient based on past behaviors (or behavioral targeting). You can send a message to each recipient at a time of day and/or day of week defined within the list as the most popular day or time for that specific recipient.

So don’t forget that while all the industry reports and expert analysis out there is helpful, you really should look and listen to what your own customers are telling you and it’s pretty easy to get this info by doing some testing and segmentation of your email list.

Happy emailing!
Alison

The depression of the early 2000’s seemed to change the promises the internet had made to its users.  The stock market crash ended a particular version of history … that vision being … wait for it … internet marketing.

Okay, you got me.  I may of snagged that line from Christopher Bigsby and Arthur Miller’s legendary Death of a Salesman, but it got you reading, right?  So my job as a marketer is done, right?  Wrong.  How do I know you’ll finish this sentence, paragraph or blog?  I don’t.   I’m hoping I’ve done all I can to entice you to carry on.

Wow.  Why would my job be done once you get to my site?  That doesn’t guarantee me a conversion win, and it certainly doesn’t guarantee a good experience either.

Right now, this blog is being read all across the world, from sunny California, over to rainy England and back to chilly Ottawa – home of legendary personalization firm, Sitebrand.  Whether you found this article from Google, Twitter or have it bookmarked (very cool, thank you), I have no unique messaging to you and I’m wearing out the ‘wait and hope’ strategy – a term I’m going to coin ‘Death of a Marketer’.

Suppose the whole goal of my site was to drive visitors to by my super-rad blog, which isn’t on my main page.  How would I accomplish this?  From a Death from a Marketer perspective, I’d sit and hope/wait for you to get there.

Death of a Marketer is an excuse for not being innovative!

Or I could do something really awesome and totally marketing-friendly.

First off, what’s unique about my traffic?   A/B testing messages that suit specific demographics is a good start.  And having that targeted content dynamically changing for those demographics dependent on behaviors and click-paths.  Now I can get into assessing the characteristics of my top segments.

If I’ve identified  two or three distinct places my traffic goes to, beyond the main page, I could divide each group into sub-groups and create tailored messaging strategies specific to each group.

Now that’s a cool start!  And that’s pretty personalized too.  We’re just getting started.  Imagine the visitor has converted in the past – I can do something different in that case.  Or what if that visitor is guilty of shopping cart abandonment?  Yeah.  I can do something there too.  I’ll stop here, before I get too ShamWow on you.  Still with me, camera guy?

The point is, let’s not let the illusion of everything eventually working out get in the way.  Death of a Marketer is very much reality versus illusion.  Controlling reality with dynamic messaging sounds pretty good, especially when one considers the alternatives.  Errr, I mean static messaging … or status quo.