Top-of-Funnel Analysis - Net New Names, Inactive Leads, and Reactivated Interest

Analyzing marketing actions at the top of the funnel has some interesting nuances. This is a direct result of the fact that having a contact’s name within your marketing database does not in any way imply interest. You may have a name in your database that is from many years ago and has not shown interest in recent years, there may be names that were input as part of a list purchase, and have never shown interest. In looking at the top of the funnel, it is critical to be able to carve out these “inactive names” from the rest. Without that, the measurement of campaigns targeted at the top of the funnel, and also your overall funnel conversion metrics will be challenged.

The best way to account for this, is to have a rigorous process of eliminating inactive names from an “Interested” stage at the top of the funnel. If a lead, interested at one point, has made no inquiries, and taken no actions in a period of time, say 3 months, then that lead is placed back in the inactive lead pool.

Campaigns targeted at the top of the funnel then, can have three main effects:

- Generate Net New Names via Inquiries; a campaign that generates buzz in the market may generate net new names for your database that come in as active inquiries. For example, if a whitepaper is offered as the call to action for a campaign, and an individual who was not originally in the database downloads it, they are both a net new name and are now part of the “Interested” stage of the funnel

- Reactivate Inactive Names; a campaign may target Inactive Names in your marketing database, and by doing so cause some of them to re-engage. This is a very valuable transition as those are names that were otherwise not showing any interest in your organization.

- Acquire Inactive Names; A campaign that involves a list purchase or other name acquiring techniques may add names to your database, however these are not people who are showing any interest, and therefore must be deemed to be part of the Inactive Name pool until a campaign succeeds in interesting them

In measuring the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns at the top of the funnel, it’s crucial to separate these transitions. If not, highly successful campaigns that re-engage large portions of your existing, but inactive, marketing database will appear to be minimally successful due to not creating many net new names. Similarly, campaigns that involve an element of list purchase may appear more successful than they truly were as they create many net new names, even though only a small percentage of these individuals will engage with your communications.

Upcoming Challenges in Campaign Analysis

I was in a good discussion the other day about how to define the end date of a campaign that had social media elements. It's an interesting challenge as social media campaigns can have many effects that keep going for a significant length of time. If, in your analysis, you need to define an end date, it can be tricky.

Looking at campaigns that involve elements of social media, there are a few phases that can affect a campaign:

Initial Launch - the preliminary efforts to get the marketing effort noticed and known in the social media scene. This will drive a number of the initial responses, although the timeframe is usually contained.

Viral Forwarding - any campaign with a successful element of social media contains content that is found interesting enough to be passed on and discussed online in forums such as Twitter. This can be the most significant element of the response in some successful campaigns. It is often contained in time though, so it does not cause as many analysis challenges as the next few elements.

Blog Commentary - here's where it gets interesting. Blog links, articles, and comments may refer to the campaign for an extended period of time. If the content remains relevant, the blog commentary can last months if not years.

SEO Effects - extending that effect is the effect of search engine optimization. As blogs comment on the initial marketing effort, search results continue to improve. This effect of course, again lasts months if not years.

Ghosts of Google - confounding any challenges of defining when a campaign ends is the fact that the algorithms of Google and other search engines have a way of resurrecting content that may be years out of date, which, with good content, can lead to a new trickle of interest in the campaign.

Given these challenges, how does one define the end point of a campaign? Is the concept of a campaign really having a defined "end date" still meaningful in today's world? I'm interested in your thoughts on this topic.

The Four Dimensions of Personalization

I did a webcast radio show for the AMA a few years back, and I remember that one of the hot topics was content personalization. At the time, I tried to broaden the topic to include other areas of personalization as well, but I am not sure many people understood what I was trying to articulate.

Recently I have started to see examples of what I would call "The Four Dimensions of Personalization". Most people tend to focus only on content (the "What") personalization, and we often forget that the other dimensions may have as much, and sometimes more of an effect on whether you get a response.

Who, When, How, and What - Personalization

1. Who is sending the communication? is it a salesperson, the CEO, the VP of Marketing? often this will determine whether I view, read or spend anytime looking at your message. Agent personalized campaigns have resulted in up to a 30% increase in opens, and up to a 300% increase in click-throughs, as often the prospect recognizes the name, as someone they have either talked to, or heard a voicemail from the sales rep.
   
2. When am I receiving the communication? Did I just visit the website, have I just attended a webinar or trade show? Or has it been weeks since I even thought of your company or offering? A MIT study on lead management (http://www.leadresponsemanagement.com/mit-lrm-study) indicated that follow-up calls within the hour dramatically increase conversion to qualified leads - why wouldn't it also help with marketing communications?
3. How am I receiving the communication? Am I the type of person that answers my own phone? Do I look at all my Direct Mail personally or have my assistant throw out anything she doesn't recognize? Debbie Hemley made a great comment on the resurgence of direct mail in her post here http://www.impressionsthroughmedia.com/?p=949 - it might be worth considering.
4. And of course What am I receiving? Is this message targeted at my current need or pain? Have I just searched on "marketing and sales alignment" on Google and now am receiving information on Lead Scoring?

• “Campaigns that target based on Website user click-stream data outperform untargeted broadcast campaigns by nearly 4 to 1.” - Forrester Research (Jupiter)

Make sure you think of all four of the aspects of personalization when planning your next campaign - as content (the "What") is only one of them.