Events, Tradeshows, Party’s Oh My!

Ah, the never ending debate in the value of events, tradeshows and customer parties.  Sales swears they are critical, management questions the value and marketing gets stuck resourcing and paying the bill.

Let me start out by saying:

• -          I believe they are important.
• -          However, the actual sales which result from participation can be questionable, but keeping your sales staff in front of customers is typically a good thing.
• -          The cost of an average sales call is around $500.  It makes sense to get as many customers together under the same event as possible – by increasing the number of customers you reduce the cost of a sales call.
• -          Sales MUST do their part and create meaningful sales conversations.  Just slapping someone’s back and getting them a drink doesn’t count.
• -          Marketing must create an environment which allows for Sales to have meaningful conversations.
• -          Measurement of success is everyone’s responsibility.  It’s not enough to just say everyone had a great time and customers were happy.
• -          For the most part, prospective customers should always be part of the event attendees.

A couple of thoughts on tracking

• -          Capture a customer’s name when they enter the event – the best way to do so is to do this electronically, an iPad is great.  Capture name, address, company, email, phone, etc.  I recommend having all of this populated in a database prior to the event so you’re just checking them off as they walk in.
• -          Upload that list of attendees as a marketing campaign, create a campaign code, smart list, etc.
• -          Ok, here’s where it gets a bit tricky – you’re going to create an A/B test scenario

o   Begin tracking the campaign code/smart list, etc. for sales. 

o   Take an nth sample of those who did NOT attend the list and use that as your control group.  I prefer a 10% sample (so the naysayers can’t complain that the sample was too small) but you can typically use less.

o   Track A vs. B and determine results associated with:

§  Net new product sold

§  Retention rate – both products and customers

§  New customers brought in

§  Average sales dollar amount

§  Increases in margin that sales produces as it relates to price increases

§  Do a simple ROI based on the cost of the events, etc. vs. sales

§  Tracking could take a year!  Yes a year. 

-         Now there are always different ways to approach this – adding in number of sales calls made, customer satisfaction scores, where they are in the buying cycle, whether a nurturing campaign is engaged, etc.  And let’s recognize that a single event doesn’t make a sale… but if you do an A/B test you can get close to representation.

-          

      But, for a down and dirty method I like to use the above.

Now, have the honest conversation with Sales and Management – whether the results are good, bad or indifferent.

Good Luck,

Scott

CMO Dashboards

Having a marketing dashboard is an absolute must in today’s ultra competitive marketplace.  Everyone has their favorite areas to track.  Some of the areas I’m keen on include:

1. Lead Funnel
2. Lead Conversion 
3. Sales Velocity
4. Marketing Revenue Contribution
5. eCommerce Platform Revenue and Performance
6. Channel Performance
7. Campaign Summary
8. Web Property Performance Social Property Performance
9. Marketing Costs vs. Budget
10. Financials — Fixed vs. Variable Marketing Costs, Future Run Rate Budget, Category Budgets
11. Media
12. PR
13. Segment and Customer Value Performance
14. New Customers Acquisition
15. Cross Sell and Up Sales Ratio 
16. Staff Performance Against Yearly Goals

There are many more which could be added, but the above tend to be the areas which allow me to quickly understand what’s going on.

Scott

Are Our Metrics Focusing on the Right Things?

It seems like every other email newsletter I receive has articles regarding metrics about social, mobile, engagement, likes, content views, GRP’s and the like.  And I’m not disputing the point of each of these are important in their own universe…. And if you can connect them, all the better.

However, let’s go back to the fundamental reason for marketing.

“All marketing investments, across ALL areas/functions/businesses, etc. is to do one thing…SELL”

     

If the above weren’t true, why would the board of directors, management and shareholders agree to marketing budgets?  Marketing is a fundamental investment with both short and long-term financial goals.  Short-term – sell product immediately, drive leads for sales, increase eCommerce traffic…. Long-term – build the brand, create advocates for the brand, drive high value leads, increase price, etc.

Which brings me to my concern…it seems to me we’ve taken our eye off the ball on the metrics which truly matter and support the reason for marketing investments.  So what top-level investment metrics should we regain focus on?  My key ones include:       

1.  Incremental Gross/Net Revenue per total marketing dollars spent

2.  Customer Acquisition Cost

3.   Both #1 and #2 but revenue per marketing employee

4.  Customer Cross Sell Ratio

5.       Recency/Frequency/Monetary Value customer model – check out Don Libey’s extensive research on this model

6.       Customer Satisfaction Levels – get down to specific detail items you’re working on and track them consistently

7.       Customer Lifetime Value

8.       Marketing Investment Payback Time

9.       Customer Attrition Rate

10.   Customer Segmentation Model and Marketing Investment

Certainly, I have additional ones I could list, but keeping things simple--the above 10 help focus your investments, strategy and executions on the things which matter.  In addition, when the boss calls you in the office, you speak management language vs. the marketing babble.

Scott