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Sitebrand > Articles by: Eric Hollebone
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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.



Which drink is your conversion process?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.

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In the B2B side of internet marketing, web content management system (Web CMS) technologies have clearly advanced the management and maintenance of websites.  It has allowed a new generation of marketers and web designers to build SEO friendly web pages and improve management and control of their web sites that has had some credible productivity gains and ROI. As a subscriber to the “crossing the chasm” philosophy, compared to other emerging technologies like marketing automation or video spokesperson, Web CMS has hit main street, see below

Web CMS search trend compared to other B2B web technologies

Web CMS search trend compared to other B2B web technologies

Further, according to Forrester,  88% of online business have adopted some form of Web CMS that range from enterprise class products such as Content Server,  Rhythmyx, TeamSite, or open source options such as  Joomla! (formerly Mambo), drupal, or TYPO3 to solve usability and technical hurdles.

 

So where is the next step? What is going to give vendors an edge over the competition?

 

Over at CMS Watch, their speculation seems to be more of the same, maybe a little Web 2.0 thrown in to keep the masses happy but no great leaps forward.

I will argue that personalization, in both anonymous (segmented) and one to one forms, should be the next evolution of content management. For both types, content would be selected from a specific group or tagged repository and dynamically served the to visitor either by segmentation rules for anonymous types or user profile preferences for the other.

But personalization only works if the right message is delivered at the right time to the right person (or segment).  In order to accomplish this, the outcome must be measured and the message’s success or failure – be it text, picture, document, flash etc. – to persuade the visitor to the goal associated to the message.

Google AdWords optimized ad rotation

Google AdWords optimized ad rotation

So each message should carry a score, much like a lead score in marketing automation. Success-based systems would only give credit or increase the content score if the desired outcome is performed.  There are limited examples of this in place today: Google AdWords has a option to selectively show better performing ads based upon their click through rate.

By unburdening message rotation and outcome-based selection, marketers can focus on what they do best: create relevant and engaging messaging to entice their web visitors into the desired actions.  But success-based content management need not stop there, the final piece in the puzzle would be to integrate into partners such as eCommerce merchandise engines or marketing automation system.

Now that would be game changing.

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MasterCard gift card

MasterCard gift card

I was out doing errands on the weekend at my local Shopper’s Drug Mart and was waiting for the family to finish when I noticed a new product from MasterCard: gift cards in 50, 100 and 200 dollar denominations.  It grabbed me, finally a universal one-time use protected payment system that could be used by online retailers that conveniently accessible.  Not to be left out, both Visa and American Express have their versions as well.

I know there are other products in this space that can fill this need including refillable cards such as rePower and individual retailer gift cards as well as online alternate payment services such as PayPal and eBillme but the accessibly, convenience and financial isolation the major credit card vendors provide may become game changers in terms of getting the stubborn majority of the population over the hump and make that first  online purchase.

The problem with the retailer gift cards is their terms of use policies are all over the map.  Chapters/Inigo you must transfer the balance from your gift card to your online account first. Future Shop has taken a more consumer friendly approach where up to three cards can be used at one time be it credit or gift. One of the biggest benefits I am jazzed about is the remaining balance can be use elsewhere, be it brick and mortar or online, is finally moving the pendulum back to the consumer after a number of years of harsh gift card policies including the most hated expiry dates.

It also could change the alternate payments industry.  Why do I need these services, when I have a brand I trust; no setup and no tie to my financial information or institution?  Don’t get me wrong, PayPal and eBillme are strong and interesting companies but if I were them, I would be worried about the long term viability of the alternate payment marketplace.

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It’s harder than it looks!

Posted by Eric Hollebone September 4, 2008

Launching a new website is no easy task especially when you’re a marketing company marketing to marketers! Yowza! But we’ve done it and we’re damn proud.

You see this isn’t just a pretty website. Sure it does a sexy job unveiling Segment&Serve – Sitebrand’s personalization platform that was previously known as the Retail Marketing Suite. But more importantly, this website is an example of modern marketing – one that we can hold up to the world as an example. I know I sound rather cocky saying this, and those who have done this will understand my perspective, but let me tell you why.

So just how are we personalizing the website you ask? Let’s count the ways…

If you do the math, we have 6 campaigns (not counting default), with 9 different options for Skytext (the text on the right hand side of the Billboard), with AM and PM visual backdrops (our control group is night time if you get that image during the day – control groups are presented about 10 percent of the time so that we can measure the actual impact of personalization by comparing results against the control group), which means we have 6 X 9 X 2 = 108 different potential campaigns available to run.  And that’s just on the home page alone!

We will be adding more campaigns throughout the entire site as we evolve it over time.  For example, our next campaign is to have the phone number listed on the bottom right of every page dictated by your GEO location; hence, a UK visitor would prominently see their toll free number first, instead of a North American toll free number.

What it comes down to is this: the modern marketer is a complex being.  They must be technical – really technical.  They need multiple solutions to manage the entire lead and customer engagement.  They need vision to understand the prospect experience.  And they need strategy to drive prospects to the online site where the funnel essentially begins.  They need to own the funnel from start to almost finish instead of just handing off a lead to sales as soon as a pulse is detected.  This is truly where personalization shines as it persuades visitors to engage further and commit faster to conversion points such as purchases or downloads. And marketers must be number crunchers capable of measuring their progress all along the progress, which only gets more complex when you add multiple marketing tools to the mix, by using pretty little dashboards.

The worst part is – most executives absolutely do not understand the breadth and scope of the talents required to do this job successfully.  To all of my fellow marketers out there who live this life daily, and revel in the chaos as I do along with my team, allow me to congratulate you for practicing a noble, if somewhat frustrating, profession.  You truly are a special breed.

If you are intrigued by this approach to Lead Engagement, I strongly suggest you check out the upcoming webinar we are doing with Marketo later this month.  I think you’ll love it.  It’s only 29 minutes long so you have no excuses not to attend.

Speaking of personalization and engaging visitors, you may find the breakdown below somewhat interesting.  This is a high level overview of our 108 home page billboard messaging campaigns.

Default Content
-> “Looking to Personalize?…”

First time & Geo-location
US Visitors -> “…Sitebrand says hey!”
Canadian Visitors -> “…Sitebrand says hi!”

First Time & Geo-location & Referrer URL = blog.sitebrand.com
Canadian Visitors -> “Like our blog eh? Sitebrand thanks you…”
US Visitors -> “Like our blog huh? Sitebrand thanks you…”

Returning Visitor
-> “Back for more? Checkout the latest buzz!”

Returning Visitor & Referrer URL = blog.sitebrand.com
-> “Blogged out?…”

First Time Visitor & Search Engine = Google
-> “Google brought you but Sitebrand keeps you”

Returning Visitor & Search Engine = Google
-> “…Still looking?”

SkyText (this is the text to the right of our Billboard)

  • To be successful, you need to reinvent your marketing practices. Use Segment+Serve.
  • Analytics will only enable you to measure your failure rate – unless you Segment+Serve.
  • If your shopping cart abandonment is high, it’s time to Segment+Serve.
  • Is your conversion rate too low? It’s time to Segment+Serve.
  • If your website visitors are not buying, it’s time to Segment+Serve.
  • Can you test your marketing initiatives in real-time? Let Segment+Serve do it for you.
  • Need more online transactions?  Are your goals not being met? It’s time to Segment+Serve.
  • Spending too much money on e-marketing with little ROI? It’s time for Segment+Serve.
  • Bounce rates higher than you like?  It’s time to Segment+Serve.

Competitor Billboard Content (this is the text if you are coming from a competitor of Sitebrands)

  • First Time Competitor Visitors -> “Looking to personalize?”
  • Repeat Competitor Visitors -> “Back for more?….”

Competitor Skytext Content

  • Sitebrand is the industry leader in Personalization. Care to join our team?
  • Checking in on Sitebrand? Join our team and learn firsthand why we’re the industry leader.
  • Instead of visiting Sitebrand, join our team and be part of Sitebrand. Now hiring!
  • The careers section is part of the Company navigation.  Apply now. Join the industry thought leader.
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We’ve talked about the power of integrated marketing campaigns because the combined message creates a sense of credibility and trust among the buying public. After all, if you do not trust the merchant then you will certainly not buy from them. Customer loyalty is another method of measuring and assessing how much trust your customers place in you. However, many Marketers drop the ball on creating this sense of trust. It’s easily done with some integrated marketing tactics.

Consider the use of customer testimonials. Clients leave them all of the time. At worse, you simply need to ask for them. It’s amazing how much people like to share and to talk. An integrated campaign will take that quote and create a case study. The case study then gets pitched to a major and trusted publication usually tied in to some human interest angle. That leads to a press release announcing the happy customer, or event, and referencing the case study and the industry coverage. Accordingly, you inform your opt-in email list of the great news and perhaps associate a short-term promotion tied to the event. Your email service provider utilizes the Forward-to-a-Friend feature to allow your email subscribers to share the news, and the positive branding, with their friends. Now suddenly your relevance in the search engines increases proportionately to the multiple references. Your higher rankings, and your supporting mentions, combine to nurture the consumer with a positive experience of your brand. Said another way – your integrated marketing leveraged one piece across multiple marketing channels. That’s what I’m talking about!

So where is the Word of Mouth we alluded to? Simple. It’s the by-product of your campaigns. People like to talk. Why do we want them to talk? Because online sales tools only nominally augment the likelihood to convert according to a study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Pew Internet Purchase Decisions

The study goes on to say that 64% found out about the product from friends, family, or co-workers.

So how do you encourage word of mouth because we know that will increase actual online conversions? Simple – you create a personalized, one-on-one experience for each consumer or visitor and then you complement the experience with integrated marketing. Combined, you create credibility and trust — and buzz!

So! How goes the integrated marketing?

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Alright, let’s start this post off with context. I’m forty years old. I’m a software developer by trade but have been a marketing executive since I was 29. Early in my career I realized I loved technology but had definite attention span issues. Sitting in front of a monitor was not conducive to my happiness even though I enjoyed it in short durations. Accordingly I transitioned into consulting, product management, product marketing, marketing and sales. My heart is in marketing. I learned classical marketing while doing it. I became street smart. I managed budgets with the best of them. I was there before Windows, the Internet, client/server, Y2K, dot com bubble, dot com crash, and software as a service. I’ve lived them all and become a better marketer for it. In other words, I’m old.

And then along came online marketing. And it’s a different beast.

As a marketer, it is awesome. Great tools, cool applications, real-time feedback, and immediate and measurable results. It’s word of mouth on steroids. Yet, for most of my contemporaries, it scares the hell out of them. They don’t get it. They don’t have time to learn it. And they end up outsourcing all facets of it to the very people who read these blogs; the next great generation of marketers.

A recent article published by Wharton, with inputs from the CMO Council, suggests that CMO’s of the future will come from the digital side. That’s a mistake.

The problem with people who solely do interactive, or online, marketing is that they don’t understand the full picture. They don’t understand the power of product roadmaps, or of industry analysts, or of direct marketing, or of public relations beyond the online medium. They don’t understand the importance of long-term strategy and tactical execution, integrated marketing campaigns tied to corporate objectives and financial forecasts. Conversely, the problem with marketers with traditional skill sets is that they are equally missing the big picture.

I know I’m generalizing but having worked with so many staffers and vendors I know I’m pretty safe in these statements. What evidence do I have? Current statistics say Americans spend 14 hours a week watching TV and 14 hours a week online. Talk about a split between the old and the new!!!

So what am I blogging about today? I’m blogging about Marketing as a trade. If you’ve chosen this trade, make the effort to learn both sides of the business. Think big. Use all of the tools of the trade to achieve big goals with big results. Marketing is an awesome career if you treat it as an apprenticeship and learn every aspect. Be an online and an offline marketer and you’ll avoid the Peter Principle.

Over the coming posts we’ll examine things to think about in a complete and integrated marketing plan and strategy. It won’t be a marketing course and it won’t be a Harvard discussion. It will be Marketing from the streets. It’ll integrate online and offline and provide the big picture you can use to achieve your goals. Best of all, it will address processes, measurements and budgets – the three things marketers hate to talk about.

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Optimization or Conversion?

Posted by Eric Hollebone February 14, 2008

So what is it?!

I know.  My question doesn’t make sense.  Allow me to explain. We’re in the middle of remessaging Sitebrand. As such, we need to revisit what we do as it relates to those who would be our consumers.  When you do this exercise, you force yourself to really understand your current and future clients.  Pretty much Marketing 101, right?  The toughest part in these exercises is nailing down what you do such that your target market understands, or at least has their interest piqued, such that they want to know more.  It’s the beginning of the messaging funnel that draws the prospect in and starts them on their way to a sale.  If you’ve ever been through it you’ll understand how this is often the most controversial aspect of remessaging.  Rarely does anyone agree and even if you manage some consensus there will always be someone else out there to tell you how you’ve got it wrong.  Welcome to Marketing!  (remind me again why I like this field so much!)

So that explains the question.  For a vendor such as Sitebrand that does dynamic online personalization, persuasion and conversion solutions, the argument around what our prospects would positively react to in that initial messaging was "Optimization or Conversion".  What are your thoughts?

Let me tell you what I think.  I think it’s Conversion.  As a Marketer, I absolutely hate the term Optimization.  When I hear that, I think of expensive consultants pouring over my systems trying to do efficiency studies which will result in more consulting engagements to apply the recommendations of the efficiency studies which will then encounter some unanticipated complications as a result of my unique infrastructure and architecture which will require more expensive consultants to analyze my technology framework which will then result in more expensive consultants to implement topographical improvements which will remove the bottlenecks I didn’t know I had which will allow the consultants to upgrade my hardware and software configurations which will then require expensive consultants to train my staff on the changes which will result in a loss of productivity and revenue generation activity which will result in many late nights for me and my team as we desperately try to catch up.  But I’ll be ‘optimized’!

Said another way, to me Optimization means tweaking some settings.  It doesn’t mean ‘make more money’.  And as I’ve said before, that’s how I’m measured.  I’m the HIPPO, as Jim Sterne recently alluded to in a session he gave (stands for Highly Paid Person with the Opinion).

Now – talk to me about Conversion and I’m all ears.  You’re getting to my end-game.  You’re talking results!  Measurable results.  Career enhancing results!  Bloggable results!  Tell me more!

Ironically – I shared some of my thoughts with Jim Sterne in a dinner outing the night before his seminar.  Guess what?  He disagreed.  He told me I was biased and that it was all about Optimization.

So I thought about it and I think he’s wrong.  After all, I’m the Marketer.  I am my own target customer.  And I think you know how I feel about Optimization.

So after watching his session, I engaged him again.  This time I told him he was biased (he didn’t look too impressed).  I said that his bias was as a result of living in the trenches of web analytics and measurement.  Being measured by productivity enhancements will create a bias towards Optimization.  In reality, Optimization drives Conversion.  They’re tied together.  And guess what?  He agreed.  So, Jim and I remain good friends.  Whew!

But there you have it, don’t you?  It’s all about knowing your customer.  I’m the executive – talk to me about Conversion.  Maybe you’re the analytics expert.  I’ll talk to you about Optimization.  In the end we’re all measured by results.  And the only results that truly count are financial.  At least in the business world.

If you enjoyed this discussion about messaging and understanding your customers, you may want to check out our next webinar where we talk about understanding the personas visiting your website.  You need to personalize to optimize their experience and convert them for success.  Or something like that.

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Alright, I have got to speak to the entire confusion around Personalization. Unless, of course, you’re not confused. If you’re not confused then please help us poor souls who are. Wisdom is great, but honestly I prefer wisdom that leads to conversions that leads to revenue.

And that’s the rub. Is personalization about revenue? Or is it about loyalty? Or is it about customer retention? Or is it about brand development?

Well, in my world, I can tell you that I don’t work for Intel, or General Motors, or Proctor and Gamble. My budgets do not have much allocated solely for brand development and I can absolutely assure you that every dollar I spend is scrutinized by my CEO, my CFO and my VP Sales. And while I value and understand the importance of all of the above, I also understand it’s Marketing’s job to feed the sales machine. Can you relate to that? If you can, read on.

So we agree the number one purpose of Marketing is customer acquisition. To me, the corollary to that means my number one focus should be on conversion. Think about it. We spend all of our time and money on creating programs and campaigns to drive traffic to a website, or to a trade show, or to a webinar, and then we typically hope the message is compelling enough that the recipient will simply act on our call to action because they believe our message. I don’t know about you, but when I go shopping, I go comparison shopping. And when I go comparison shopping, I evaluate price and availability first. Only after I have found a merchant who can provide what I want do I suddenly find myself facing a decision; whom to buy the product from. So, using myself as a focus group, what motivates me? For me it’s simple. Who do I trust the most? Trust is the secret ingredient to making each of our programs convert to revenue.

Can you relate?

If you can then answer me this. What makes you trust a merchant you’ve never dealt with before?

There will always be lots of opinions on this but I think it’s simple. I trust the merchant I identify with, who speaks my language, who understands my persona, whom I can relate to.

How does the merchant do that? By personalizing the experience based on my behaviors and my actions. If a picture is worth a thousand words then my actions must be a whole set of books. Don’t believe me? Next time you go shopping in the real world, watch that sales clerk as they approach you. You can be sure they’re assessing your wardrobe, your preferences based on where you are in the store, your body language, your projected financial well being, and your engagement. And you can be sure that the good sales clerks will be mirroring your actions so that you will trust them. In essence, they’ve created a personal experience for you. Why? To convert the customer.

So that’s where I’m starting with my Marketing dollars. I want to convert each prospect I engage with. I want a personal experience for each of them.

Later on I’ll think about retaining them. When my budget goes up. Or my CEO complains.

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