Digital Marketing Strategic Roadmap

Copyright © 2011 CustomerThink Corp. Document may be freely
distributed using www.customerthink/digitalmarketingbook.
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Strategic Roadmap for
Digital Marketing
E-Book for Chief Marketing Officers
By Authors of DigitalMarketingOne
PhotolicensedfromGettyImages.
Copyright©2011CustomerThinkCorp.Distributionispermitted
onlybysharingwww.customerthink.com/digitalmarketingbook.
DonotpostPDFonanywebsiteorrequireregistrationtoaccess.

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StrategicRoadmapforDigitalMarketing
Copyright © 2011 CustomerThink Corp. Distribution is permitted
only by sharing www.customerthink.com/digitalmarketingbook.
Do not post PDF on any web site or require registration to access.
Edited by
Akin Arikan
Bob Thompson
Authors
Ardath Albee
Akin Arikan
Edward Boyd
Kim Dushinski
Naras Eechambadi
Eric Enge
Jim Lenskold
Robert Lesser
Tom Manning
Laura Patterson
David Raab
Chris Ryan
Alan See
Jim Sterne
Steve Woods
Foreword
CustomerThink research finds that digital and social channels are the
fastest growing methods of customer interaction. About two out of
three consumers start their research with a search engine, with social
networks a growing source of influence during the buying process.
Advanced mobile technologies will only accelerate the digital trend
and further empower customers.
Today’s successful marketer must learn how to engage with customers
and create value for stakeholders in a complex digital world. To help
you grapple with this challenge, thought leaders from the Founders
Council of our DigitalMarketingOne community have written a series
of articles to help you design a coherent multi-channel digital
marketing strategy.
Akin Arikan, the lead architect for this document, leads off with a
comprehensive framework. In subsequent articles, contributing
authors add their expert advice in each of these major topics.
 Channels: Advertising, search marketing, mobile marketing,
social media marketing
 Techniques: content marketing, lead management, revenue
performance management, customer marketing
 Optimization: accountability, ROI, management practices,
technology strategy
We hope you enjoy this e-book and find it useful. Please use
http://www.customerthink.com/digitalmarketingbook to spread the
word about this free resource. No registration is required for access.
To keep up with the latest insights in our fast-moving digital marketing
world, engage with our thought leaders at DigitalMarketingOne!
Bob Thompson
CEO, CustomerThink Corp.
Founder, CustomerThink.com and DigitalMarketingOne.com

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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
A Framework for Digital Marketing Strategy....................................................................................... 4
PART I - DIGITAL CHANNELS
Interactive Advertising: User Engagement Drives ROI......................................................................... 8
Search Marketing: Optimizing Organic and Paid Search.................................................................... 11
Engaging Consumers with Local Search to Promote and Persuade.................................................... 14
Mobile Marketing: Creating a Meaningful Dialogue with Your Customers......................................... 18
Four Metrics for Social Media Marketing Success............................................................................. 20
PART II - DIGITAL MARKETING TECHNIQUES
Using Content Marketing to Build Credibility and Engage with Your Target Audience ....................... 24
Lead Generation: Digital Strategies to Create New Sales Opportunities ............................................ 27
Lead Management: An Essential Component of End-to-End Digital Marketing.................................. 30
Revenue Performance Management: Align Marketing and Sales to Optimize Top-Line Growth......... 34
Maximize Long-Term Customer Value with Customer Marketing...................................................... 37
PART III - DIGITAL MARKETING OPTIMIZATION
Five Key Principles to Improve Your Marketing ROI .......................................................................... 39
Five Steps to Improve Your Marketing Accountability....................................................................... 43
Management Performance Techniques to Guide Digital Marketing Spend........................................ 48
Aligning Technology and Digital Marketing Strategies....................................................................... 50

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“Doing Digital justice
means to make
appropriate use of its
interactive
capabilities when
promoting your
brand and offering .”
Akin Arikan
Akin, the author of
Multichannel Marketing:
Metrics and Methods for
On and Offline Success,
is a product strategist for
IBM’s web analytics and
enterprise marketing
management solutions.
Akin has been working
with digital analytics
practitioners since 1999.
Blog LinkedIn Twitter
A Framework for Digital Marketing
Strategy
How can you increase ROI and accountability? Isn’t that the question
that keeps you up at night?
Specifically within digital marketing, how can you accomplish this
systematically and without getting sidetracked by the hype of the day
or whichever digital channel is yelling the loudest?
That is just what our contributing authors to this e-book aim to help
you with. Together with this group of experts in the numerous niches
within digital marketing, we’ll show how the many puzzle pieces can be
assembled into a strategy that supports your business.
I will start us off with a framework to help you set your digital
marketing strategy at the highest level. The chart below summarizes
the most critical elements of a digital marketing strategy. Here is a
brief description of each of the major elements.
0. Inform Digital Strategy by Overall Marketing Strategy
If you haven’t set your overall marketing strategy yet, stop wasting
your time with digital here, go back and do that first. Research your
market, select your target segments and set your overall marketing mix
(the 4Ps).
1. Define Digital’s Mission
Job number one with digital is to define how the channel should be
contributing to your overall business and to the customer life cycle
across multiple channels. How should the channel help with creating
customers and making money?
2. Select Your Overall Digital Strategy
Based on the mission that you set for Digital, you can now derive your
overall approach. This includes the presences that you should prioritize
(e.g. website, mobile, Facebook, etc.) and their related “site types” or
business models, i.e.
1. eCommerce,
2. Lead generation,
3. Customer service,

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4. Content/publishing,
5. or Brand marketing.
Based on these decisions you can then derive the top five KPIs (key performance
indicators) that you should manage the digital channel towards. You can also form an
initial opinion on the ad channels that suggest themselves for the audience that you
wish to reach.
3. Interactivity
Digital still can’t beat traditional advertising media on reach. Yet, digital’s unique
strength is interactivity. Doing Digital justice therefore means to make appropriate use
of its interactive capabilities when promoting your brand and offering. Interactivity
means taking promotion, which is one of the 4 classical Ps in the marketing mix, and

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expanding it by focusing on many more Ps that digital is really good at: persuasion,
permission, personalization, growing net-promoters, etc.
4. ROI Measurement, Accountability, and Optimization
The other strengths of Digital are measurability and testing. Put these to use towards
continuous improvement.
5. Technology Strategy and Selection
Finally, your use of digital marketing technology should of course be determined by the
digital and interactive marketing strategies that you are going after.
Maturity Model
It makes sense to have a maturity model as a companion to our framework so that you can
score your progress against the framework.
The model below provides a score for each of the five major areas (#1 -5) in the framework
above. For each area, the model describes different levels of maturity at which a company
may be. The lowest level of maturity gets a score of zero and the highest level a score of 3.

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As an example of using this maturity model, below is how a company might score that is really
good at digital as a standalone channel but hasn’t yet made the step to cross-channel
integration.
Next Steps
That’s it, as to setting your top-level strategy. In subsequent articles, members of our
DigitalMarketingOne Founders Council will then add expert advice about each of the rich
elements of digital marketing:
 Channels (Advertising, search, social media)
 Marketing Techniques (content, customer, revenue management, lead management)
 Accountability & Optimization (marketing performance, ROI measurement)
 Technology strategy
Contact the Author: Blog LinkedIn Twitter

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“The key mistake
marketers often
make is to try and
calculate ROI
without the metric
and campaign
objective being
clearly aligned.”
Ted Boyd
Ted Boyd is CEO and
Partner at digital
marketing agency
58Ninety Inc., where he
has created interactive
marketing strategies and
solutions for clients such
as Canadian Tire, Molson
Canada, CTVglobemedia,
OLG, Unilever,
Workopolis, and WWE. He
has 25 years marketing
and sales experience,
including 15 years in
interactive marketing.
Previously, Ted was
President and CEO of
Iceberg Media.com,
President of Indigo Online
and Senior VP of New
Media & New Business for
Young and Rubicam
Canada.
PART I - DIGITAL CHANNELS
Interactive Advertising: User
Engagement Drives ROI
Interactive Advertising is a type of communication that allows the
consumer or user to engage with it. It is therefore by definition
fundamentally different from traditional advertising which is
characterized by a ‘push’ or one way communication construct.
Further, the value of an interactive advertisement is directly correlated
to the level of user engagement it generates. This is true of all formats,
including display, video and specialty ad units.
An example of this type of execution could be a display banner which
contains a piece of video in addition to a simple animated game. Both
these media types offer engagement opportunities and would be
tracked separately inside the single execution from a metrics
perspective. The value of the execution would be correlated directly to
the number of user interactions with these two media types either
individually or taken together. This is distinct from an execution that
contains a call to action inviting a user to visit a Website or undertake
an action that leads to another destination. The ability to click is thus
distinct from actual interactivity in the context of an online advertising
unit in that the former implies a gateway to a series of later actions
whereas the latter is more often a destination in and of itself.
Role in Digital Marketing Strategy
Interactive advertising can have a significant impact on all aspects of
the digital marketing framework, but in examining this it is important
to start with campaign or program objectives. As an example,
depending on the specific objective one may wish only to create an
interesting and engaging ad or potentially an application that exists in
isolation and has as it desired outcome, an e-commerce purchase. This
would affect the mission, strategy, interaction strategy and place in
the customer lifecycle, as well as the measurement and ROI
components. Accordingly, objectives would also drive investment
decisions pertaining to creative and media.
Decisions around increasing one’s investment in interactive advertising
should be made on the basis of facts. Clearly defining objectives

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followed by a test or controlled buy with a post analysis should provide clear insights as to
whether the campaign was a success. On that basis marketers can start to incrementally invest
in additional executions and media properties that are driving the specific result being sought.
Integrated Multi-Channel Campaigns
Another way to look at interactive advertising is as part of a larger integrated campaign which
could include print, out of home and television. Leveraging certain assets from these other
media channels and in particular video assets that have been used in the making of a television
spot allows for key brand cues to be used or repurposed while offering marketers the ability to
provide user the additional dimension of engagement.
It is important to note though that how the Internet should be used will differ greatly by
demographic. Given specific online behaviors and media consumption patterns, marketers
targeting youth would be well advised to consider a significant interactive advertising initiative
whereas those targeting an older demographic may want to be more judicious and selective. The
way these demographic groups use the Internet and respond to interactive advertising varies
greatly which is why the mantra of test, track, learn, evolve is so important in making wise
investment decisions in this still emergent and ever changing space.
ROI on Interactive Advertising
Companies can best measure true return on their Interactive advertising investment on the basis
of their objectives. If as in our earlier example, engagement is the objective, the number of
interactions with a piece of creative may be the key measure of success. Dividing this number by
the media cost will provide a cost per interaction and this may be compared to other media
channels and even other online campaigns for effectiveness and ROI. The key mistake marketers
often make is to try and calculate ROI without the metric and campaign objective being clearly
aligned.
Leading practitioners of interactive advertising continue to achieve excellent ROI, but it does
require a willingness to be agile and move quickly. As an example, a leading North American car
manufacturer looks at interactive advertising as a means of distributing the opportunity to
configure a car, get a quote right and book a test drive right at the point of the ad being seen
and engaged with on a media property. The ROI for them in this case is substantial because test
drives frequently convert to sales making the interactive ad an extremely effective tool. It is
important to note however that the ROI here is substantial because the metric once again aligns
with the objective.
Align Objectives with Metrics
A common theme throughout my article is that aligning objectives with metrics will set the
interactive advertising initiative up for success. Above all else this is the key driver of obtaining
more ROI and improved returns on interactive advertising initiatives.

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Additionally, in a time when click through rates have tumbled to all-time lows and the number of
websites continues to skyrocket and fragment, smart marketers will increasingly be trying to
distribute key functionality out into ad units themselves on the actual media sites they are
running on or into social network environments where they can engage people directly.
For a few examples of this thinking in action, please visit us at www.58Ninety.com.

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“Search Marketing
serves three major
purposes: 1. Protect
your Brand, 2. New
Customer, 3. Harvest
Repeat Customers.”
Eric Enge
Eric Enge is a partner
with Stone Temple
Consulting (STC), which
has been providing SEO
Consulting services for
over 5 years to a wide
range of clients, ranging
from small silicon valley
start-ups, to Fortune 25
companies. Eric is co-
author of The Art of SEO
book.
Search Marketing: Optimizing Organic
and Paid Search
Search marketing is a term that has different meanings for different
people. As I will use it here, it means the practice of marketing your
business through search engines, and includes both search engine
optimization (SEO) and paid search (aka PPC or Pay Per Click). Just be
aware that some people mean only PPC when they use the term
search marketing.
SEO is the practice of obtaining visitors from your web site from the
unpaid portion of the search results (aka the “organic” or “natural”
results). We call it unpaid because you do not pay the search engine
for the visitors you get. Your ability to get traffic from this portion of
the results depends on your success at sending signals to the search
engines that your web site or web page is one of the best answers (if
not the best answer) to a user’s search query. Doing this successfully
requires you go through constant analysis and promotion of your web
site.
PPC is the practice of obtaining visitors to your web site from the paid
portion of the results. You pay the search engine for each click on one
of your ads in their results. As you can imagine, this is a pretty
competitive marketplace, so success here depends on doing a better
job of optimizing your marketing campaign than your competitor, and
this requires constant effort as well.
Role of Search Marketing
Search Marketing serves three major purposes:
1. Protect your brand. When someone types in the name of your
organization or your product / service, what comes up? You should
want to be number one in the organic results, and number one in the
PPC results. Usually, ranking number one for your brand in the organic
results requires little or no effort, and ranking number one in the PPC
results requires some effort, but not much. Do both of these things!
Why would you want a competitor to get new customers who
conducted a search on your brand name?

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2. New customers. When someone searches on a generic query (such as “digital cameras”) it is a
clear indication that they have not yet decided to do business with a specific company. This is
where new customers come from! If you can rank highly in the search engines (either organic or
paid) for these terms, you can obtain your share of these and expand your business.
3. Harvest repeat customers. Even after someone has become your customer, they may still not
be committed to make their next related purchase from you, and may still enter in a generic
search query in a search engine.
When to Invest in Search Marketing and How to Measure Results?
Like all marketing mediums, how much you invest in search marketing will largely be determined
by the ROI you can get, and your ROI targets. This means you must measure your results to see
what type of ROI you are getting. This requires at a minimum that you implement a web
analytics solution, such as Google Analytics, Omniture, Unica NetInsight, or something similar.
A key here is to take the time and effort to implement conversion tracking so you can tie the
event of a conversion on your web site back to the actually key phrase the user entered in back
at the search engine. This allows you to measure your ROI on a keyword by keyword basis so you
can see where you are getting the best ROI. Do not skip this step!
Both SEO and PPC are extremely competitive. You need to plan on having an expert practitioner
spend significant time on optimizing your results in order to have a chance to beat out the
competition. In addition, you must be prepared for this to be an ongoing investment. You don’t
want to be the company that achieved top search results, only to sit back and watch your
competition go roaring past you.
Setting up proper analytics and conversion tracking provides your expert practitioner the tools
they need to succeed. They can also use tools such as Compete.com, Hitwise, SEMRush, or SpyFu
to collect detailed data on what your competitor is doing.
What is the ROI Potential that Leaders Achieve?
It does take a commitment to pursue search marketing, and that can be daunting for those who
don’t understand it. However, there are two major reasons why you should pursue it:
1. Your competition is doing it. If your competition pursues it, and you don’t, they are getting
customers that you aren’t. For many businesses, one of the best ways to get new customers is
via search.
2. Competitive advantage. You can gain a significant competitive advantage if you are smarter
about how you make your search marketing investments. This results in your business getting
customers from search instead of your competition! This is true even for B2B oriented
companies that sell very expensive equipment.

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Ultimately, the goal is to implement a campaign that provides an acceptable or better ROI for
your organization. Leading SEO practitioners can derive extremely high levels of ROI - 100% or
more, for their efforts. Due to its direct response model, PPC is a more competitive area.
However, PPC campaigns can yield ROI levels on the order of 50%.
Need Help Selling Search Internally?
Once you become convinced of its benefits, you may find yourself having to try and persuade
others in your organization for the need to pursue search. This is often more difficult in a large
enterprise, particularly as it relates to SEO. Two resources that can help you with that are:
 Selling the Benefits of SEO in a Large Enterprise
 Getting Top Management Buy In for Enterprise SEO
These tools can help you learn how to make the internal sale. Once you have done that you will
have taken the first major step towards search marketing success.
Summary
As you can see there are high rewards for pursuing search marketing. It does require some
upfront investment, patience, time, and ongoing investment as well. However, there are those
among your competition that won’t hesitate. Set yourself up to execute a superior search
marketing strategy and you will create a significant competitive advantage for your business.

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“First and most
important, an
organization should
understand what
their consumers
want from local
search.”
Alan See
Alan See is CMO and Vice
President at Berry
Network, Inc. an AT&T
Company. He also serves
as an associate faculty
member for the
University of Phoenix’s
College of Business &
Management. He holds a
bachelor of arts in
business and an MBA
from Abilene Christian
University.
Engaging Consumers with Local Search
to Promote and Persuade
Historically, consumers have relied on local media channels such as,
print Yellow Pages, newspapers, TV and radio stations to find products
and services close to their home and work. Consumers are now
increasingly using specialized internet search sites that allow users to
submit geographically focused searches against a structured database
of local business listings. This is commonly referred to as local search.
Typical local search queries include not only information about what
the consumer is searching for, but also where information, such as a
street address, city name or postal code. Local search is an excellent
way for a merchant to capture a consumers’ expression of local intent.
For example, “Dayton restaurants” could be considered a local search.
The location modifier “Dayton, OH” helps the consumer quickly refine
the area of interest.

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Examples of Local Search sites
Internet Yellow Pages Local-Search Sites
YP.com Google Local/Maps
Superpages.com Yahoo! Local
Yellowbook.com Bing Maps
DexKnows.com Citysearch
Impact of Local Search on Digital Marketing Strategy
All businesses, particularly small locally owned service-based organizations, want to be found by
ready-to-buy consumers who live in their specific trade area. It’s also no surprise that when you
consider the products and services offered by restaurants, physicians, dentists, auto repair
shops, or plumber’s (just to name a few) that most consumers want to engage a local merchant.
Most marketers are familiar with the four key stages of the consumer buying process. Within
each stage marketers have the opportunity to improve the customer experience and influence
the final purchase decision.
The stages in the consumer buying process include: Awareness, Information Search, Evaluation,
and Purchase and After-Sale Service.
Local search is generally used by consumers during the information gathering and evaluation
stages. In regard to the marketing framework presented, local search would not only impact the
ability to promote, but also persuade since most local search platforms include ratings and
reviews. The ability to persuade is also impacted by the quality and quantity of the information
provided by the local search site.
For example, incomplete or inaccurate information can leave a negative impression with a
consumer; while robust, complete details help portray the business as professional and
reputable. The probability of converting shoppers into new customers increases when coupons
or special offers are leveraged at the right time through the right channel.

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Finally, mobile search on Smartphone’s makes it possible for consumers to find businesses while
on-the-go. In addition, location-based services from platforms like Foursquare or Gowalla make
it possible for a business to push a message or offer directly to a consumer who “checks-in” or is
simply within proximity of the business. This demonstrates the growing importance of mobile
search platforms as the adoption rate for mobile technology increases.
Getting the Return on Local Search
First and most important, an organization should understand what their consumers want from
local search. Research shows that consumers want the basics; they want information on
proximity, hours of operation, services offered, ratings and reviews, and contact information. In
short, they are looking to validate that the business is nearby, open, and easy to do business
with. In addition, most local search sites will have a link back to the advertiser’s main website.
Therefore, a quality, up-to-date website is a must before venturing into local search. Many local
search platforms also offer the ability to upload photos and video. This means an organization
should also have their social marketing strategy and content support plan in place before
launching a local search program.
Local search is one of the most measurable forms of marketing. An organization can measure
website traffic, coupon downloads, calls, clicks or number of ratings and reviews. As with all
success metrics it depends on what action the organization is trying to encourage the consumer
to take.

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Keys to Success
In relation to a sales funnel, locally owned SMB’s focus a great deal of time, energy and
marketing dollars on “ready-to-buy” consumers. What that means is that they concentrate on
being found when the prospect is searching for information to satisfy an acknowledged need or
desire. They like to take advantage of that opportunity to quickly engage the prospect because
research shows that local searchers are generally well qualified and more apt to buy.
When it comes to improving local search results advertisers should consider the following:
1. Adding local modifiers to your paid search
keyword list in order to localize your search
program.
2. Geo-targeting your keywords. Geo-targeting
refers to the physical location of the website
visitor. For example, if your company uses geo-
targeting and the consumer is located in Dayton,
the search engine will serve up an ad for your
location in Dayton. Geo-targeting enhances the
customer experience by providing local, relevant
information. It should be noted that effective geo-targeting requires businesses to have
an accurate understanding of their trade radius. Casting too wide of a net could result in
wasted advertising dollars, while too narrow of a focus could result in lost sales.
3. Feed management services. This will help ensure that your business listing information
is accurate and up-to-date as the data is fed directly to the local search sites.
4. Localized landing pages. A localized landing page is a stand alone page that appears
when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search result link. The
landing page should contain information (hours, maps, service offering, etc.) relevant to
the referenced location. Localized landing pages have the added benefit of increasing
organic rankings as they are often picked up by Google and Yahoo! maps and included in
their local search results.
Lastly, it should be noted that search, mobile marketing and social media are converging on local
markets. This convergence will continue to reinforce the need for strategic integrated marketing
that focuses on the consumer buying process with a goal of delivering a superior customer
experience. Cross channel pollination between print, digital, and social media, as well as direct
mail and TV will continue to accelerate as organizations look for ways to create greater synergy
with their marketing budgets.

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“Mobile Marketing is
not about sending
unwanted text
messages to people
or simply offering
discounts via the
mobile channel. It is
about creating a
meaningful exchange
on mobile with your
customers.”
Kim Dushinski
Kim Dushinski is the
President of Mobile
Marketing Profits, a
marketing firm that helps
local businesses use
mobile marketing to get
more customers. Her
company helps people
start their own mobile
marketing business and
become mobile
marketing
entrepreneurs. She is the
author of The Mobile
Marketing Handbook.
Mobile Marketing: Creating a
Meaningful Dialogue with Your
Customers
Mobile marketing is “a set of practices that enables organizations to
communicate and engage with their audience in an interactive and
relevant manner through any mobile device or network” according to
the Mobile Marketing Association. I’d like to point out a couple of
important parts to this definition.
Communication and engagement are two key factors to successful
mobile marketing. This means that mobile marketing is not about
sending unwanted text messages to people or simply offering
discounts via the mobile channel. It is about creating a meaningful
exchange on mobile with your customers. By having a solid mobile
presence when your customers try to find you on mobile is one of the
most powerful ways to begin the dialogue.
The other important phrase is relevant. Consumers are so attached to
their mobile devices at all hours of the day and night in any situation
that they are not forgiving of anything reaching them that is not
relevant. On a mobile web page with only one ad showing they expect
it to be relevant to what they are either doing or what they are
engaging in at the time (a gaming app for example). Any text message
that comes in must be something they explicitly asked to receive and
it must be something that is relevant to them.
Impact of Mobile Marketing
People expect to be able to do on mobile anything they can do on a
full sized desktop – email, commerce, browsing, information
gathering, etc.—and they want it to work smoothly and seamlessly.
The fact that people typically have their mobile device with them
24/7/365 means that every other form of digital marketing just
became more powerful and more relevant. Mobile has unique tools
like text messaging, but in reality it simply amplifies everything else
and makes digital marketers work harder to make sure it works on
these tiny devices.

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If you already have people visiting your website via mobile devices you need to get a mobile
friendly version of your website built immediately. Mobile web traffic is growing exponentially
and the Nielsen prediction that smartphones will outnumber feature phones in the U.S. by the
end of 2011 means that this will continue. And yes, even smartphone users with the most
powerful browsers need a mobile-specific site.
Mobile marketing needs to be integrated with all other forms of marketing (websites, email,
phone, signage, etc.) and so as long as any other form of marketing is being utilized then mobile
should be engaged.
Measuring the Return on Investment
Companies can measure the true return that they are getting on mobile marketing exactly the
same way they do with any other marketing tool. Set a measurable goal at the outset of the
campaign (sales, leads, coupon redemptions, etc.) and then use the tools provided by your
vendor to track the results. Too many times this is over thought in mobile. It is just the same as
any other marketing tool.
Mobile can be used to get new customers, increase purchases from current customers and
retain customers. The tools you choose to use and the way you market the campaign will tell you
which goal you will achieve. For example, a text message coupon that is only advertised in store
will only serve to increase purchases from current customers. However, that same coupon
marketed outside the place of business can bring in new business.
Mobile marketing includes many different tools from text messaging to mobile advertising to
mobile search to mobile-friendly websites and mobile commerce just to name a few. ROI
numbers are across the board for different kinds of industries. My favorite resource for keeping
up on this is Mobile Marketer . Every day there are three or four stories with different statistics
from different mobile channels.
Keys to Success
Proactively and aggressively marketing your mobile campaigns is the best way to improve your
returns. If you launch a text message campaign then you need to incorporate the opt-in process
in every other type of marketing you do. It needs to go on your website, in your emails, on your
voice mail, in your place of business, on your business cards…everywhere. When you build a
mobile friendly version of your website, tell everyone. Put a link to it from your main site.
Announce it in your radio commercials. Have your staff tell all your customers. It cannot be
emphasized enough that the marketing you do for your mobile marketing will ensure its success.
To learn more about mobile marketing see http://www.mobilemarketingprofits.com or follow
me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/KimDushinski.

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“The key to improving
returns on social
media marketing is
combining a firm belief
in this brave, new
method of contact with
a committed course of
experimentation and
discovery, and a
resolute dedication to
measuring results.”
Jim Sterne
A consultant and
speaker, Jim Sterne
focuses on measuring the
value of the web to
create and strengthen
customer relationships.
Sterne’s seven books
include Social Media
Metrics. Sterne produces
the eMetrics Marketing
Optimization Summit
and is the founding
president of the Web
Analytics Association.
Four Metrics for Social Media
Marketing Success
Social media is a growing plethora of ways and means of letting people
share pictures, videos, opinions and more online. Social media has
become so popular because it makes it easier for humans to
communicate. The telegraph, the telephone, and fax machines were
the precursors and people found a way to turn these one-to-one
communication technologies into many-to-many interaction tools.
The Internet has always been a social medium, putting the power of
narrowcast and broadcast into the hands of the individual. Email
became discussion lists. Personal websites became blogs. Messaging
with pictures to whole groups of people became popular with
Facebook. Texting was quickly adopted for those with cell phones and
Twitter turned texting into a broadcast medium. Flickr and YouTube
filled in the need to share photos and videos.
With the advent of more ubiquitous access to the Internet via smart
phones, social media is the natural progression of communication
capabilities and has been adopted by many, soon to be most and
eventually by all.
Impact on Digital Marketing Strategy
Social media has an impact across all aspects of the digital marketing
strategy framework. It can be useful to acquire new customers, turn
loyal customers into advocates and everything in between.
Social media is a communication tool just like the telephone. Can you
use social media as you would the telephone for prospecting? Yes.
Persuasion? Yes. Sales? Yes. Customer service? Yes. Loyalty
enhancement? Yes.
Whether you’re working in a business-to-consumer market or are
strictly a business-to-business enterprise, social media can be useful
and valuable at all phases of the customer life cycle...
Social media can also be thought of as simply another communication
channel. In the early 1990’s, many companies felt that they didn’t
need an online presence because their customers were not online
then. Progressive companies saw the handwriting on the wall and

21
invested in learning about the online world through trial and error. Then as now, it’s valuable to
make your mistakes when there are fewer people watching and the learning curve is not so
steep. A few resources spent over time will yield more knowledge than those same resources
spent all at once, trying to play catch-up.
Whether you’re working in a business-to-consumer market or are strictly a business-to-business
enterprise, social media can be useful and valuable at all phases of the customer life cycle as it
allows prospects and customers to put a more human face on the organization. Spokespeople
are not longer the untouchable celebrity who extol the virtues of your product on the TV screen,
but are brand managers and product developers who can speak directly to individuals.
Sizing your investment in social media marketing
How much should you spend on marketing in general? How much should go into direct mail or
television or a conference exhibition booth? These are questions of religion and politics.
You know your budgets are based on religion when the top most executives grant the largest
piles of cash to those areas they know the best. “I spent 20 years in television and I know it
works.” “Direct mail has always been the backbone of this company and we’re not going to kill
the goose that laid the golden egg.”
These are statements of confirmed knowledge about the way things used to be. Put an ad on TV
and watch consumers walk zombie-like into their local grocery stores to buy. Mail out a catalog
and watch while order forms with checks in them flood back into the mail room. Those days are
gone and a more complex marketing mix is the order of the day.
Most rigid, steadfast, religious top-level marketing executives tend to get moved out to pasture
by the next generation who can prove that there is a better way. They are interested in trying
new things and are less tied to the tried and true. They are, however, subject to the whims of
political budget machinations.
While religion is founded on faith, politics is based on influence and cronyism. Budgets grow for
those who are good at communicating with the budget makers in the ways they like best. If the
big cheese is fond of spreadsheets, you are advised to crunch those numbers. If the boss likes
charts and graphs, a good graphic artist is invaluable. If the person in the corner office is more
impressed by the achievements of others, a presentation full of competitive examples will win
the day.
Should you increase your investment in social media? Given that we are at the very beginning of
the discovery phase of this means of communication, the answer is, Absolutely! The question
then becomes, how do you know whether you should decrease your investment in social media
marketing?

22
When additional spend does not yield additional results, it may not be the spend at fault. It may
be that the company has forgotten that social media is more about social than it is about media.
As with all marketing, spending more money to convey a poor message will not help.
Measuring ROI
There are four main metrics for social media marketing, all of which must be considered to
determine the true return; Awareness, Sentiment, Response and Value.
Awareness is the same metric we’ve always used in marketing. Ask a random selection of people
if they have heard of your product. Ask them if they can attribute any characteristics about your
product. If you’re doing your job, the answer will be, “Of course I’ve heard of KFC. It’s finger
lickin’ good!” You grow awareness through reach and social media lets you reach people you
might not otherwise. They are the friends of friends who read the tweet re-tweeted by those
you couldn’t reach on your own. Then you can segment those who have seen different ads,
visited your website or participated in your sociosphere and measure the difference - or lift - in
their response.
There are four main metrics for social media marketing, all of which must be considered to
determine the true return; Awareness, Sentiment, Response and Value.
Sentiment pertains to how people feel about your brand, your product or even about you. It’s
great that everybody is blogging about your latest offering, unless they are deriding your efforts,
tweeting about your incompetence and posting video satires about you on YouTube. Tracking
sentiment across competitors and over time allows you to keep a finger on the pulse of the
marketplace and divine what’s in their hearts and minds.
Response comes in three varieties. Did your foray into the fields of Facebook elicit a social
response? Did people Like what they saw? Did they blog about it? Did they re-tweet it from the
rafters? Did you get any viral action? Lots of social response? Excellent! A large check box in
column A. Column B is for business related response. Did they click through to your website,
download the white paper, sign up for the webinar, join the club or subscribe to the newsletter?
These are standard metrics used by web teams for more than a decade. Column C gets a check
mark in it when you can relate your social media activities to sales. That brings us to the fourth
metric: Value.
Top line sales, bottom line profits and customer satisfaction are the final arbiters of the success
of your social media efforts. Did your blogging, YouTubing, tweeting and crowdsourcing generate
sufficient interest to generate cash, save money on customer support or increase good will
enough to make the investment worthwhile?

23
Follow the Leaders
As with websites in the 1990’s and web analytics in the 2000’s, leading practitioners are telling
stories of fantastic success—in very small doses. There are few companies that are doing
everything right. There are many companies that have pockets of people who are doing
astonishingly well. There are anecdotal stories about agencies who have created the most
attention getting viral campaigns (Hello, Old Spice Guy!) and there are customer service
technicians who have become social media poster children because they actually responded to
their customers who were lost and crying in the wilderness.
But only a handful of companies have taken social media seriously enough to build social
communication command centers. They are harnessing the power of this new mode of
interaction and are reaping the benefits. Best practices in social media will be revealed over the
next few years. For now, the game belongs to the swift.
The key to improving your returns on social media marketing is combining a firm belief in this
brave, new method of contact with a committed course of experimentation and discovery, and a
resolute dedication to measuring results in order to determine value as you learn.
For further exploration and information:
 Read: http://bit.ly/SocialMetrics
 Attend: http://www.emetrics.org
 Join: http://webanalyticsassociation.org

24
“Answer the who,
how and why
questions in relation
to your selected
mission(s). This
information will
become the
foundation for your
content marketing
plan.”
Ardath Albee
Ardath Albee is a B2B
Marketing Strategist and
the CEO of her firm,
Marketing Interactions,
Inc. She applies over 25
years of business
management and
marketing experience to
help companies with
complex sales use
eMarketing strategies to
generate more and
better sales
opportunities. Her book,
eMarketing Strategies
for the Complex Sale was
recently released by
McGraw-Hill.
PART II – DIGITAL MARKETING TECHNIQUES
Using Content Marketing to Build
Credibility and Engage with Your
Target Audience
Content marketing is the practice of sharing informational resources
that educate a specific audience about business-critical issues, shows
how our expertise can help them resolve the issues and provides
evidence that we can deliver on those promises in order to actively
engage those most likely to buy.
Content marketing has a pervasive impact on all the stages of the
digital marketing strategy framework.
Stage 1: Define Digital Marketing Mission
This stage is about setting goals about what you want your digital
strategy to achieve. If you define the mission of creating customers,
for example, the underlying question is just how you can use digital

25
means to accomplish this level of conversion. That means content. For digital doesn’t exist
without content.
It is during the goal stage that you must take a deep dive into the types of customers your
strategy should create, come to understand their needs and priorities and how they conduct
themselves within the digital environment. In essence, you must answer the who, how and why
questions in relation to the selected mission(s). This information will become the foundation for
your content marketing plan. Without this knowledge you cannot move further in the
development of your digital marketing strategy framework.
Stage 2: Derive the Digital Strategy
Armed with the information you developed in Stage 1, you’re now ready to determine how to
fulfill your mission by selecting the core elements for inclusion in your digital marketing strategy.
Once you have specified the delivery vehicles (e.g. website, social media platforms, email, etc.),
prioritized your channels and metrics for accountability you’ll have the insight you need to
determine what type of content to develop.
Stage 3: Derive the Interaction Strategy Across the Customer Lifecycle
Based on Stages 1 and 2, your task is to develop content storylines based on the goals you’re
tasked to achieve and the fulfillment components you’ve selected. This is the critical impact
point for content marketing. In addition to consistent messaging, with digital, all components
must be integrated to work together in achieving your goals. The best practice for engaging
prospects and customers across the lifecycle is to map your content topics across stages from
awareness to pre-purchase to customer introduction and extension. Informational needs are
different at each stage. The execution tools you select will perform best with the right type of
content delivering the message with the most meaning for the audience at the right time.
Stage 4: Measure and Improve ROI
This stage is all about measuring the performance of your content and the interactions it
generated for your digital marketing strategy. Based on goals and the metrics you chose, how
well did your content perform? What worked and what content fell flat? Can you identify
additional opportunities for conversion based on the patterns exposed by the metrics?
Review Existing Capabilities
Before you start investing in content marketing, you must determine what overall processes
exist, the resources available and the obstacles to using them. Here are a few things to consider:
 Can you update the content on your website and blog, as well as create and send emails
without IT assistance? Or, do you need to plan for a 3-week wait in the queue to get a
new content resource coded and posted? Timing is important, so make sure you can
plan appropriately.

26
 What are the capabilities of your email marketing tools? Are they integrated with other
reporting or will you need to manually compile results from other analytics tools to
attempt to prove the outcomes you’ve achieved? Can you build a business case for
acquiring a marketing automation platform?
 Do you have lead and customer management processes in place that the technology
and tools will support in execution? What about editorial processes and branding
guidelines? Must legal review and approve content before it can be published?
 What resources do you have available to develop content? At what capacity?
Content Marketing Success Stories
There are more and more success stories coming to the fore for content marketing. The level of
ROI depends upon a number of factors, but the following are examples of the achievements
being reported by companies that have embraced content marketing as a vital component of
their digital marketing strategy:
 Increased qualified lead conversion rates [70% increase reported by PivotLink]
 Improved ability to connect with leads – they accept calls because they feel like they
“know” the company and appreciate the value of the information received. (increase of
200% was reported by Intellitactics)
 Higher contract values have been reported as a result of using content to nurture leads
by providing the right information at the right time.[ increase of 450% reported by
Zuora]
To improve your returns on content marketing, it’s critical to monitor and measure response to
content across the buying process. Figure out what works and what doesn’t and then produce
more of the content that shows the best results. Keep tabs on your buyers, prospects and
customers and make sure you shift your content in parallel with the changes you monitor in their
behavior. Never stop listening and applying what you learn to content development.

27
“...digital lead
generation for the
complex sale plays a
large role in
influencing
prospects before and
after the initial sales
contact.”
Robert Lesser
Robert Lesser is the
founder and President of
Direct Impact Marketing,
a provider of on-demand
inside sales, telesales
enablement tools and
direct marketing services.
Prior to stepping out as
an entrepreneur, he held
a number of marketing
positions at Dell, IBM,
Reckitt Benckiser and
Loblaw Companies.
Lead Generation: Digital Strategies to
Create New Sales Opportunities
Lead generation is simply the creation of sales opportunities. Although
lead generation is most often associated with acquiring net new
customers, it can include developing opportunities within existing
accounts in new divisions or work teams. For most organizations,
digital lead generation is a scalable, cost-effective approach to
generating leads for their sales teams.
In the business-to-consumer space or with high volume business-to-
business solutions, digital leads are quickly converted online to a sale.
In an e-commerce model, the flow is fluid and the participation of sales
is typically not required.
Should sales be needed as part of the digital sales model, the sales
team leverages a ranges of digital sales tools that could include: email,
web chat, web or video conference. Both sales and marketing are
profiting from the advances in digital tools, media and process.
With lengthy sales cycles involving multiple decision-makers, the
complex B2B sales process will often start with digital lead generation.
But at some point, outreach from sales is critical to address a
prospect’s questions and to qualify the prospect. Because of the time
lapse between the initial inquiry or lead being generation and the
conversion to a sale, digital lead generation for the complex sale plays
a large role in influencing prospects before and after initial sales
contact.
Given the vital nature of lead generation and its position at the nexus
of sales and marketing, there are a number of key processes
associated with a lead.
 The definition of a lead is agreed upon between sales and
marketing;
 Sales agrees to take specific action against a lead within a
certain timeframe;
 Disqualified, weak or unresponsive leads are recycled for lead
nurture.

28
Why Invest in Lead Generation?
As widely acknowledged, the costs of acquisition far surpass that of retention. Seldom can an
organization meet its goals based solely on retention, but clearly the first place to start is to
determine whether retention goals are being maximized. Digital marketing can play a strong role
in customer retention marketing and customer service.
An increase in digital lead generation is warranted should the digital marketing spend be
delivering an ROI that generates new customers and dollars on a superior basis. However, the
key items that should be in place prior to investing in lead generation are:
 Understanding of buyer behavior
 A strong house file for managing leads and for outbound digital marketing
 A clear sales model for engaging and processing leads
 A marketing model that is aligned with sales to generate and manage lead flow
Measuring the Return
The measurement of return on digital lead generation for online, direct sales is relatively easy in
comparison to complex direct sales, or even more challenging channel sales. There are a number
of ways to track the return on digital lead generation. The following is a list of measuring the
return, from easiest to most difficult in a complex sale environment where a prospect may be
touched by both online and offline media:
1. Any digital marketing program that touched a prospect;
2. The last digital marketing program that touched a prospect;
3. The digital marketing program that prompted a prospect to buy.
Measuring a true return will involve determining the impact of digital lead generation programs
by choosing amongst the three options above and then determining the revenue associated with
this prospect on a one-time basis and over the lifetime of the client.
The risk in comparing your organization to others on ROI is that your business model may be
very different generating very different revenues and expenses. The preferred approach is to
start by using internal benchmarks and then bona fide external benchmarks.
For example, track past digital lead generation programs and look to benchmark these programs
against existing digital lead generation programs. Second, use control groups in digital lead
generation programs that are not targeted with digital marketing. Understand how much
incremental ROI was generated versus the control group. Finally, there are research
organizations that provide benchmarking data. For example, IDC and Sirius Decisions provide
benchmarking data against similar organizations in the B2B technology space.

29
Tips for Success
Given the dynamic nature, measurability and relatively low costs associated with digital lead
generation, improvement can be gained through the following:
 Earmark resources and make time for innovation and testing;
 Integrate and layer lead generation media and approaches;
 Value internal lists as assets and segment your lists for more relevant digital marketing;
 Align digital lead generation program to buyer profiles and buying cycles;
 Mix offline media with digital media.
For more information, visit Acquiring Minds Blog, the Direct Impact Marketing web site, or
contact Robert Lesser on Twitter or LinkedIn.

30
“...it takes an average
of seven or eight
contacts to turn a
raw inquiry into a
customer.”
Christopher Ryan
Christopher Ryan is
president of Fusion
Marketing Partners. Chris
has twenty-five years of
marketing, technology,
and senior management
experience, and is a
widely known expert in
business-to-business
marketing, sales strategy,
systems, and processes.
As both a services
provider and in-house
marketing executive,
Chris has played a
transformative role in
driving marketing and
sales programs that
achieve the desired
results and create
alignment and synergy
between the sales and
marketing operations.
Lead Management: An Essential
Component of End-to-End Digital
Marketing
Lead management refers to everything that happens in your process,
from the time an inquiry is generated until the sale is made. Other
terms used to describe lead management include: lead qualification,
lead nurturing, sales development and contact management.
Lead management also encompasses re-marketing to existing
prospects. Perhaps you have heard of the term “drip marketing”,
which refers to the process of periodically aiming promotions at your
existing lead database in order to convert them into customers.
Companies that practice lead management do so because they want
to tightly align the marketing and sales organizations and ensure they
are both effective and efficient in every part of the end-to-end
process.
Lead management has a broad charter and touches multiple parts of
the end-to-end digital marketing framework. Because it takes an
average of seven or eight contacts to turn a raw inquiry into a
customer, smart companies put a great deal of focus on nurturing
every inquiry in your database, except for those that are obviously
unqualified.
The pie-chart below illustrates the importance of lead management. It
shows an average distribution of inbound inquires from B2B marketing
programs. Eight percent (labeled as A Leads) are qualified prospects
that are actively looking for a product or service. Seven percent (B
Leads) are qualified prospects with a mid-term need. 30 percent (F
Leads) are disqualified, now and in the future. But it is the way you
handle the 55 percent (C Leads) of inactive leads that will determine
your success.

31
Distribution of B2B Marketing Inquiries
Keep in mind that 30 percent or more of C leads will eventually make a purchase, which
represents a greater volume of business than the A and B leads combined. This is why it is
imperative to not only put a lot of effort into closing the A and B leads but also to put equal
emphasis on nurturing and qualifying the rest of the leads in your database.
Is Lead Management Right for Your Business?
Most companies that practice digital marketing should also take advantage of aggressive lead
management. This is especially true if any of the following conditions exist:
 Your sales cycle is measured in months, not days or weeks
 You have field sales or telephone reps that cannot or will not, contact all responders
 The conversion rate of inbound inquiries to qualified leads is low
 Sales reps spend a lot of their expensive time qualifying leads
The graphic below shows a simplified example of the inbound lead qualification process. By
instituting this or a similar process, you can achieve much stronger marketing and sales metrics.
The qualification filter can be telephone-based or web-based.

32
Getting the Payoff
The ROI you can achieve by implementing lead management ranges from early to late in the
marketing and sales funnel. Some of the key benefits include:
 Reducing sales-cycle times for field sales reps (due to the fact that they are now dealing
only with qualified leads) by as much as 50%
 Reducing the cost per lead by 45-60%
 Decreasing the cost of new customer acquisition by 20-30%
 Increasing the conversion rate of inbound inquiries to qualified leads by as much as
100%
To achieve these benefits, there are few things to keep in mind.
First, always follow-up promptly. In the B2B world 3-8 percent of responders may be in an active
buying cycle. You need to engage with these people quickly – otherwise your competition will
surely do so.
Second, acknowledge the inquiry and, if you are extremely busy, set an appointment to talk in
more depth at a later date. This may buy you some time while letting the prospect know you are
not ignoring them.
Third, be persistent in your lead nurturing efforts. Don’t make the mistake of stopping after 2-3
contacts. As mentioned above, it often takes eight or more contacts to close a sale.

33
And, finally, don’t allow “optional behavior” when it comes to sales lead management. Your
follow-up strategy should be completely consistent and not subject to whatever else is
happening in your business.
For more information, visit www.fusionmarketingpartners.com or contact the author at
cryan@fusionmarketingpartners.com.

34
“RPM is a systematic
approach to
identifying the
drivers and
impediments to
revenue, rigorously
measuring them, and
then pulling the
economic levers that
will optimize top-
line growth.”
Steve Woods
Steve Woods, Eloqua’s
chief technology officer,
cofounded the company
in 1999. With years of
experience in software
architecture, engineering
and strategy, Woods is
responsible for defining
the technology vision at
the core of Eloqua’s
solutions. Earlier, he
worked in corporate
strategy at Bain &
Company and
engineering at Celestica.
Revenue Performance Management:
Align Marketing and Sales to Optimize
Top-Line Growth
Revenue Performance Management is a systematic approach to
identifying the drivers and impediments to revenue, rigorously
measuring them, and then pulling the economic levers that will
optimize top-line growth. Really what RPM provides is an analysis
framework that allows businesses to make the right investment
decisions across the entire marketing and sales spectrum. Without it,
making a choice between such disparate options as investing in a
webinar series or hiring another sales person would be left to gut
hunch or organizational politics.
RPM is focused squarely on measuring and improving your results.
As a discipline, it does this on three levels; dashboarding,
benchmarking, and optimizing.
The first of these, dashboarding, is about understanding where you
are. How big is the potential audience for your message? How many of
those are aware of you? Who is in your funnel? How many of those
become leads? Does sales close them, and how quickly? Only with this
in place, can an organization truly understand how buyers buy, and
therefore what aspects of the digital marketing strategy they have in
place are working, and which are not.
The second component is benchmarking. RPM looks at benchmarking
holistically, in order to understand and optimize performance. At the
simplest level, benchmarking one campaign against another to
determine which to invest in is a very valuable exercise. However, only
with a proper RPM framework in place can two campaigns with
slightly differing outputs be compared.
For example, if comparing a search campaign to a webinar, it might be
tempting to look at the simplest metric of the number of new
inquiries, but each campaign is focused on a different stage of the
funnel, and therefore this comparable is false. RPM provides a
framework for benchmarking the campaigns against each other, so

35
that the marketing qualified leads delivered by the webinar can be compared against the raw
inquiries delivered by the search campaign.
Equally valuable is benchmarking against a plan. Comparing counts and conversion rates to
historicals and to revenue projections two or more quarters out allows an understanding of
whether revenue growth goals many quarters into the future will be achievable, and what gaps
will need to be overcome in order to achieve them.
The third and final component of RPM within a top-performing organization is continued
optimization. With a detailed model of the buyers’ buying process in place, organizations can
understand where increased investment is needed, and what the likely outcome will be.
Investments in search or advertising can be compared against investments in ROI calculators of
sales professionals, based on each investment’s ability to maximize the overall revenue
performance of the organization.
Each of these optimizations may affect an organization’s overall digital strategy, and may
contribute insights that lead to major rethinking of it. However, RPM acts as a framework that
allows a digital strategy, once conceptualized, to be implemented and optimized in order to
drive the maximum amount of revenue for the business.
The RPM Journey
RPM is, in many ways, a journey. While there is no single tactic that must be in place prior to
commencing, RPM does rely on an organization adopting a view of the buying process that has
the buyer firmly in control of the majority of the information he or she needs in order to reach a
buying decision. Based on this view, organizations who are set up for success with an RPM
initiative will have invested in a broad spectrum of digital content assets that map to the needs
of each buying role at each stage of the buying process.
In order to gain the needed insights from this wealth of content assets, successful organizations
develop a discipline of tracking online behavior across these digital assets. Whether anonymous
behavior, or known, this behavior is used to identify indicators of purchase intent, and then used
to prioritize leads for sales or hold those leads back and engage with them in a longer term
nurturing approach.
Underlying this effort, of course, is a marketing database that contains an understanding of who
each individual is and what is known about them. This database is the foundation for
understanding who within the buying process is a good fit as a buyer, and who is sufficiently
engaged to warrant a conversation with sales. Maintaining this database’s quality and
consistency is key to driving a high performance revenue process.
With a marketing philosophy centering around enabling buyers with all the information they
need, the right technologies in place to begin observing and deciphering customer intentions
based on their online behavior, and the beginnings of a strong marketing database, an

36
organization is ready to begin building a high performance revenue organization through the
processes of RPM.
Measuring Success
Marketing has always been a difficult area of the business to measure return on investment, and
sales is only slightly easier. In complex and considered purchase environments, this challenge is
magnified, as most efforts do not directly trigger revenue, they only guide buyers in the right
direction. The best way to measure the overall effectiveness of your revenue engine is to
measure the cost to acquire one dollar of revenue. This is the total spend on marketing and sales
divided by the total revenue generated. This metric, more than any other, provides a measure of
the efficiency of your revenue engine.
In addition to efficiency, high performing revenue teams also measure growth as a critical metric
on the health of their businesses. Many of the best performing companies across multiple
industries aggressively manage and optimize their investments into revenue.
The returns on investing in RPM as a framework come from greatly increased efficiencies in sales
and marketing. We’ve seen leading practitioners reduce sales cycle times, increase lead flow,
reduce cost per lead, increase competitive win rates, and increase sales team productivity to
name just a few areas in which significant hard-dollar returns have been seen. On top of this, the
clarity of understanding that can be gained in terms of where to invest allows leading
practitioners to avoid making the investment mistakes that their competitors are making.
Best Practices
The key to improving your results from an RPM initiative is organizational alignment. From the
executive team down to the front lines, the team must be aligned with the idea that buyers are
in control of their own buying process, and the job of a revenue organization is to facilitate these
buyers. At each step, RPM leaders put the instrumentation in place to objectively understand
where each buyer is in their own unique buying process. Each touchpoint updates a central view
of the buyer, and this view guides both how individuals are engaged with, and how they are
represented in metrics that roll up to the executive team’s view of the revenue process.
In order to do well at this effort, an organization must be aligned in a number of ways. First, data
on buyers must be seen as extremely valuable, and kept clean and up to date at every point in
time. Second, the buying process must be well understood and all touchpoints within it well
instrumented. Third, the processes and analytics that marketing, sales, and the executive team
rely on must be driven from this understanding of each buyer.
Making these organizational alignment changes is not simple, and is not fast, but leads to a
tremendous understanding of the economic levers that drive revenue within a business.

37
“[Customer] value
can be defined in
different ways in
different businesses—
it could be a revenue
or sales measure, a
profit or contribution
measure or even
loyalty or advocacy.”
Naras
Eechambadi
Naras Eechambadi is the
General Manager of
Quaero, a CSG solution.
Quaero delivers multi-
channel marketing
solutions that help
companies build long-
lasting customer
relationships and
maximize return on
investment. Eechambadi
was the winner of the
American Business
Award for Marketing
Executive of the Year in
29 and is the author of
High Performance
Marketing: Bringing
Method to the Madness
of Marketing (Kaplan
Professional Press, 25).
Maximize Long-Term Customer Value
with Customer Marketing
Customer marketing focuses on maximizing long term customer value
in order to drive revenue and profit growth. It does this by enhancing
the customer experience and engaging customers appropriately based
on customer insights that are generated by analyzing customer
attitudes and behaviors across channels. Customer marketing should
be the hub of your digital marketing framework.
Should You Increase Your Investment?
The first step to decide whether to increase investment in your
customer marketing is to measure the value of your customer base
and to understand the elements that drive the value. Value can be
defined in different ways in different businesses—it could be a revenue
or sales measure, a profit or contribution measure or even loyalty or
advocacy. The choice of value measure is driven by the strategic
business objectives of the company.
Next, segment your customers based on current value as well as
potential future value.
Once these are understood, the third step is to use your business
objectives to determine what your customer marketing objectives
ought to be. For example: Do you want to retain your most valuable
customers or acquire more of those types of customers? Do you want
to increase the value of your average customers or perhaps even
encourage your least valuable customers to exit?
Finally, once you have set your objectives, figure out what the financial
or strategic value is of meeting that goal and how much you are willing
to invest in it. This amount can be driven by some financial measure
such as return on investment (ROI) or internal rate of return (IRR) or by
the availability of budget and the value of this objective versus
competing objectives
Measuring the True Return on Customer
Marketing
The best way to measure the return and to conclusively prove the
effectiveness of marketing is by holding out a sample (control group) of

38
customers who are similar to the segments you are targeting for customer marketing, but do not
give them the customer marketing treatment (e.g. personalized messages, triggers based on
actions and objectives, etc.). Track the average value of the control group vs. the complete
target group.
The deviation in values over time, aggregated across the entire customer base, gives you a
measure of the value created by customer marketing. This is the return on the investment that
you have made in customer marketing. Does it meet your financial or strategic objectives? This
measurement is often neglected by marketers and it often comes back to haunt them—because
without control groups they cannot prove that their results would not have happened without
their campaigns.
A media company client of ours who is a leading practitioner of customer marketing has been
able to achieve a 250% increase in their registered visitors, 300% increase in email response
rates as well as in visitor pages, a doubling of ad rates for their sites and as a result of all this
their ROI on customer marketing is well in excess of 50%.
Best Practices
The key is discipline in developing meaningful measures of customer value (revenue or
profitability are not always appropriate), segmenting the customer base based on value and
designing marketing programs that are optimally designed to increase that value.
So if your challenge is customer attrition you should not be focused on customer acquisition or
cross sell, but on identifying and retaining your most valuable customers. Control groups, well
designed experiments to figure what does work and what does not are also critical.
Additional resources and the Quaero/CSG Systems blog are available for further reading. You can
also contact me at naras@csgsystems.com for questions or comments.

39
“Key measurements
to improve digital
marketing include: …
Capturing
incremental sales
conversions and
customer value to
optimize the digital
marketing spend.”
Jim Lenskold
Jim Lenskold,
international speaker and
recognized marketing
expert, is President of
Lenskold Group and
author of Marketing ROI,
The Path to Campaign,
Customer and Corporate
Profitability (McGraw
Hill). Jim has published
articles and presented
internationally on the
topics of marketing ROI,
marketing strategies and
business growth
strategies.
PART III -- DIGITAL MARKETING OPTIMIZATION
Five Key Principles to Improve Your
Marketing ROI
Fundamentally, marketing ROI is a process of continuously improving
marketing performance and profitability by applying deeper insights to
maximize the effectiveness of strategic and tactical decisions. Those
insights are generated from carefully designed measurements and
financial assessments of ROI to ensure that the marketing contribution
of profits exceeds the marketing investment while meeting
appropriate short- and long-term objectives.
Digital marketing strategy benefits from marketing ROI measurements
into digital marketing influence on buyer’s path to purchase and the
incremental contribution of digital marketing tactics within the overall
marketing mix.
Key measurements to improve digital marketing include:
 Capturing incremental sales conversions and customer value
to optimize the digital marketing spend. Digital marketing has
the advantage of tracking actions and behaviors but not
always to the point of a sales conversion and customer value.
 Testing of targeting, offers, frequency, and messaging that not
only improve online marketing performance but can also be
implemented in broader media channels.
 Using modeling to understand how offline media drives online
behaviors and conversion rates.
 Using modeling to assess the contribution of online marketing
to offline sales, especially for digital content used in the
“research” phase of the buying cycle prior to major offline
purchases.
 Using modeling to detect the interaction effects, cross-over
impact, and synergies between marketing tactics.
In addition to measurements, ROI analysis is used to prioritize digital
marketing initiatives that have greater impact on high value segments

40
and driving conversions, identify where incremental spend can generate positive returns,
provide guidance on the point of diminishing returns, and indicate where improvements in
supporting the buyer’s purchase funnel can have the greatest impact.
What’s the ROI on ROI Measurement?
Investments into marketing ROI decision support tools, measurements, analytics, and processes
are all fortunately designed to generate incremental profits from increased sales and customer
value. Marketing organizations should increase their investment in ROI measurements if: 1) they
can benefit from insight into effect (or have unknowns) and; 2) they are ready to act on insights.
If ROI measurement is strictly for reporting purposes, the investment may get questioned.
It is not possible to measure everything in marketing so measurements must be prioritized based
on the expected improvement to effectiveness, the strategic benefit of gaining insights that can
influence many marketing initiatives, and the cost. This discipline of measurement prioritization
will concentrate limited budgets on measurements likely to have greater impact. To help justify
your measurement investment, use our Return on Measurement Investment Tool. (Click to go to
the tool)

41
Acting on Insight
There is no question that the most important step in measuring marketing ROI is to demonstrate
that you can act on insights to improve ROI. The marketing organization builds credibility by
running ROI scenarios and conducting measurements that show positive ROI on current
marketing initiatives; a good first step.
However, marketing builds confidence within an organization when strategies or tactics are
changed to grow sales and profits. It is especially important to approach ROI with the
expectation of improving results since there will be some marketing initiatives that show
negative or low ROI performance levels when first measured. Measurements should provide
insight to improve those initiatives instead of just eliminating them in favor of new, unproven
initiatives.
The process of improving an organization’s marketing ROI begins during the measurement
planning stage. Make sure your measurements are designed: 1) with a clear plan for how the
results will be implemented and; 2) to influence decisions with high profit potential, as
determined by running basic ROI scenarios.
Continuous Improvement
Measurements of marketing initiatives show ROI results ranging from very negative to levels in
excess of 1000%. While it is important to generate positive ROI levels above a required
threshold, it is even more important to constantly support the process of measuring and
improving ROI. This discipline of constantly improving effectiveness builds confidence and
credibility that marketing can deliver results for the organization.
Here are five key principles for improving the returns on your marketing.
1. Run ROI Scenarios
Whether you are using a very basic calculator or a sophisticated scenario planning tool,
running ROI scenarios in the planning stage to quantify your expected outcomes will
guide your decisions to improve the profit potential. It is also beneficial for building a
case for different strategies or spending levels.
2. Prioritize Measurements
Generate measurements and analytics that provide insight into financial outcomes. A
good measurement plan includes a mix of basic tracking and more advanced measures.
If you are seeking to expand your measurement or ROI analytics, make sure to include
high impact measurements that are actionable to win support for additional
measurement funding.
3. Make Marketing More Measurable
When measurements are planned concurrently with marketing plans, small

42
modifications to the implementation can have significant benefits for measurements.
This includes setting up control groups, varying the marketing mix or spending levels in
select areas, completing benchmark research, or introducing more variance in media
channels to improve modeling precision.
4. Assess Incremental Conversions & Value
Many touch points are working together to generate sales so the measurement of any
specific marketing initiative should assess its incremental contribution. Market testing,
analytics, and modeling can be used to isolate a tactic’s contribution within the overall
marketing mix. Marketing initiatives that contribute to progression in the buyer’s funnel
must be linked to sales conversions. Sales conversions should account for total
incremental customer value, including repeat purchase, retention and growth from
higher value segments. It can take time and effort to establish the measurements
necessary to fully address the contribution of marketing but each step in the process
provides valuable insight.
Experiment Frequently
Measuring marketing effectiveness and acting on that information in the next cycle of marketing
will lead to improvements in ROI. Improvements in ROI are accelerated when the measurements
are designed to not only provide insight on your current marketing initiatives, but also on
alternatives that are run concurrently. This can include alternative executions such as variations
in the marketing mix, analyzing performance of different target segments, introducing new
tactics, or testing new offers. With a small portion of the total budget for experimentation, new
insights can generate leaps in performance.

43
“The bottom line, as
marketers we must
still prove the
business value of
marketing, that is we
must be ever more
diligent and vigilant
when it comes to
marketing
accountability.”
Laura Patterson
Laura Patterson is
president and co-founder
of VisionEdge Marketing,
which specializes in
enabling organizations to
leverage data and
analytics to facilitate
marketing accountability
and operations, measure
and improve marketing
performance, develop
dashboards, and enhance
marketing and sales
alignment. Laura is a
frequent speaker and
author of three books
including Metrics in
Action: Creating a
Performance Driven
Marketing Organization
(Racom, 2009).
Five Steps to Improve Your Marketing
Accountability
First the good news! After several years of significant reductions,
marketing budgets are expected to see some recovery in 2011. For
example, according to a Forbes Insight survey three out of four
marketing executives expected their marketing budgets to stay the
same or to increase in their 2010-2011 fiscal year, with one-third
expecting an increase.
Steven Noble of Forrester suggests that 2011 could look like 2010,
when “marketing budgets rose cautiously at best.” But even so, 39
percent of respondents expected increases averaging 18 percent.
Ah but there’s a small catch…marketers must demonstrate more
accountability for the dollars. Steve Noble in his blog advises
marketers “to focus on measurable program elements that are
designed around business objectives. That sounds obvious, but the
surprising truth is that many of the CMOs whom we surveyed said
they were shifting budget to areas they considered “strategic,” which
falls far short of this standard.” And the Forbes Insight study opens
with “marketing departments are finding themselves under increasing
pressure to justify their spending, prove the effects of their marketing
campaigns, and demonstrate program success…or risk losing their
budgets.”
The bottom line, as marketers we must still prove the business value
of marketing, that is we must be ever more diligent and vigilant when
it comes to marketing accountability.
What is marketing accountability?
Accountability has become another business buzz-word. We all think
we know what the word means and we all think we do it. When you
review the definition of accountability, it doesn’t really shed much
light on its importance, “ac•count•a•bil•i•ty [uh-koun-tuh-bil-i-tee]:
the state of being accountable, liable, or answerable.”
(Dictionary.com).
We can turn to the AMA for a more specific definition. The AMA
defines marketing accountability as:

44
Source: Forrester (Marketing Budgets: It’s Time To Plan For A More Fortunate 2011)
“The responsibility for the systematic management of marketing resources and processes to
achieve measurable gains in return on marketing investment and increased marketing efficiency,
while maintaining quality and increasing the value of the corporation.”
Perhaps VEM’s (VisionEdge Marketing) perspective will help drive home the concept.
Accountability is the measuring and monitoring of the commitment a person, group, or
organization makes to deliver specific, defined results. We have found that accountable
marketing organizations are both accountable to the financial and strategic initiatives of the
organization. When marketing examines the ROI of a program it is addressing the financial side
of the equation.
Measuring marketing’s commitment to moving the needle regarding market share growth or an
increase in customer value are examples of being accountable for the strategic initiatives side of
the equation. Both necessitate aligning marketing objectives with business outcomes and linking
marketing to a company’s financial performance.
Performance Management Takes Measurement
“You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” This time-tested adage from management guru
Peter Drucker applies now more than ever given the continuous scrutiny on marketing. Best-in-
class marketers understand this idea all too well and are investing in the infrastructure (tools,
systems, skills, processes) needed to develop a fully accountable performance-driven outcome-
based marketing organization. These organizations aren’t only focused on being more efficient
(reducing costs and waste), but improving their effectiveness and strategic value with laser-
beam focus being on improving business results.

45
Notice two operative words: performance-driven and outcome-based. Accountability starts with
an outcome, a result that needs to be accomplished. Marketers have tended to concentrate on
outputs, the “stuff” we produce, and the ROI on these outputs. Best-in-class marketers are
shifting from being output-oriented to outcome-based.
For example, rather than reporting on the number of people who attended a webinar and the
associated ROI, these marketers are reporting on the number of qualified opportunities against
the expected performance target for a webinar and how many of the opportunities ultimately
converted into sales worthy prospects.
Performance-driven marketing organization leverage performance management techniques.
Performance management is the process of measuring progress toward achieving key outcomes
and objectives in order to optimize individual, group or organizational performance. VisionEdge
Marketing research over the past nine years found that marketing performance management is
a top priority for the C-Suite (CEOs, CFOs, COOs, etc.).
The need for marketing to embrace performance management is not new. The Advertising
Research Foundation study highlighted this finding back in 2000. Despite the number of tools
added to the marketing arsenal, performance management remains elusive for many marketers.
Why? In our work we have discovered that many marketing organizations lack the data and tools
they need to measure and manage performance and those that have the tools and data often
lack the analytics, metrics, performance targeting, and measurement sills. These problems will
continue to plague marketing organizations until they focus on and acquire the analytical
approaches and skills, the right data and data collection processes, and the right measurement
skills and tools.
Most importantly accountable marketing requires develop meaningful action based measures
and metrics. This year’s study by Unica (now part of IBM) found that turning data into action,
measuring results and effectiveness remain among the top priorities for marketers.
Steps to Improve Your Marketing Accountability
There are two things every marketer can do to improve their accountability. First, ensure the link
between marketing objectives and the associated programs, tactics and activities are directly
linked to specific quantifiable business outcomes. Second, demonstrate the value of marketing
by setting, monitoring and reporting on relevant measurable marketing objectives, metrics and
performance targets to the leadership team.
Easier said than done you think? True. But these five initial steps will go a long way toward
enabling you to start and accelerate this important journey.
1. Conduct an audit to identify alignment, data and process gaps.
It’s hard to know where to go and where to aim if you don’t know your current state.
Use the audit to identify and add the right talent, systems, and tools to help automate

46
marketing processes and improve marketing performance. Assess the crucial data,
analytical and measurement skills your team needs and provide training.
2. Create and adopt a performance measurement and management strategy, system and
metrics and measurement framework that aligns marketing with the business
outcomes.
Design and select metrics and clear standards of performance that enables marketing to
measure its impact, effectiveness, efficiency and value. It’s important to understand the
select the right metrics. Marketing metrics should tie to our three primary
responsibilities: acquiring, keeping and growing the value of profitable customers.
Therefore the metrics we select should in some way indicate the impact marketing is
having on market share, customer value, and customer equity.
3. Engage the leadership team and form strategic partnerships with an extended team of
finance, IT, sales, service, etc.
In 2005 the Tuck School of Business facilitated an executive roundtable with nearly 20
CFOs and CIOs from some of the largest companies in the world, including Cisco, IBM,
Eaton, Whirlpool and Citigroup. Why? Because CFOs and CIOs along with other
members of the C-Suite “have increasingly become key partners in a variety of initiatives
critical to business success.” Performance management is one of these critical business
initiatives. CFOs often lead the internal discussion about metrics and performance
management. CFOs are also taking the initiative to develop standard, consistent
measurements that focus on leading indicators of value creation. CIOs and IT play a
major role in creating and maintaining the infrastructure and data needed to support
performance management. Marketing accountability is key to performance
management. The elevation of their roles plus the leadership team’s renewed focus on
productivity, business value and performance management require marketing to build
bridges and allies finance and IT and engage them and other key members in the
marketing performance management journey.
4. Create and align processes, policies and practices that ensure the linkage between
marketing objectives and programs with business results.
As a result the marketing organization will be properly and strategically positioned and
pulling in the same direction as the rest of the organization. Organizational
development research has shown that proper alignment of people and organization’s
result in higher productivity for less effort. When you have achieved alignment the link
between marketing project, programs and initiatives and the broader company
outcomes is explicit. And each member of the marketing team understands the impact
of their daily activities on the outcomes. Once you take this step you will be able to

47
prioritize projects based on their value and impact rather than what’s most familiar or
easiest.
5. Develop a multi-level dashboard to report performance and results in real-time to
facilitate course adjustments and foster decision making. Make your marketing
dashboard an iterative and collaborative effort. A good marketing dashboard facilitates
decisions. If your marketing dashboard doesn’t enable you to make course adjustments,
know what is and isn’t working, and communicate the value of marketing in financial
and strategic impact terms then it’s time for a dashboard makeover.
For many marketing organizations these steps may require process and cultural changes. So
marketing accountability is not a journey for the weak or timid. However, there have been
enough studies over the years to suggest that by implementing marketing accountability you will
be able to hold or add to your marketing budget AND you will become more effective at using
marketing to drive business results.

48
“…progressive
marketers rely on
ROI directed funding
for traditional
channels and media,
and they rely on
return on objectives
(ROO) for non-
traditional, “new
territory” funding.”
Thomas
Manning
Thomas Manning is a
partner with Ninah
Consulting, a firm that
quantifies and helps to
increase marketing
effectiveness and
profitable business
growth with the
analytical rigor of a
modeling house to
address company issues,
produce robust models
and deliver relevant
insights with actionable
recommendations.
Blog LinkedIn
Management Performance Techniques
to Guide Digital Marketing Spend
Innovative marketers have deployed marketing performance
techniques to effectively guide spend in emerging digital channels and
platforms. These progressive marketing organizations have prudently
explored the benefits of the digital area by connecting strategic
initiatives with a measurement and assessment capability to optimize
marketing spending. Until the digital area proves itself relative to
other competing areas of spend, this will be a valuable technique.
Specifically, progressive marketers rely on ROI directed funding for
traditional channels and media, and they rely on return on objectives
(ROO) for non-traditional, “new territory” funding (ex. parity in search
ad exposure). ROI funding techniques work best within categories of
spend that have easily identified transaction measures (ex. # of web
pages viewed) and ROO for areas of strategic funding (ex. internal
branding). The key to optimal allocation of marketing spend is a
broader management technique that allows marketing decision-
makers to balance ROI with ROO directed funding. A complementary
test and learn approach with supporting analytics and feedback
mechanisms provides a strong capability for optimal funding. With
that ability, marketing management can be more proactive and timely
with new areas of opportunity such as social media or search.
For digital marketing, funding increases will be accepted with greater
ease and timeliness by knowing there is a technique for measuring the
impact on the objectives or returns for that area, where empirical
measures and benchmarks are thin. One way to execute this approach
is to utilize a set of leading indicators to connect senior management
objectives with department level objectives and generally reflected in
cascading metrics designs. This provides top down and bottom-up
accountability. A second step in that approach would be to inter-
connect the metrics across organizational boundaries where
marketing has minimal to no authority but where performance has a
key impact on marketing initiatives. This is generally cross functional
(and many times cross agency) and provides marketing with a set of
leading indicators to know how well their initiatives are performing
before they are reflected in financial reporting. Additionally,
organizations utilizing these techniques can align the metrics within a

49
scorecard which senior management can use to manage cross functionally and cross agency in a
systematic manner.
As example, a credit card company was looking to increase the business spend of their card
holders in the small business category. Certain segments of that category exhibited seasonal
spending characteristics for their businesses and increased spending was impacted by credit
limits that assumed level, non-seasonal spending. The company sought to develop a major
community group initiative for these customers with social media as the platform. Marketing
was seeking significant budget to develop and maintain these community group activities. A set
of cascading metrics was developed for these non-seasonal segments that included revenue
improvement, partly driven by business transaction measures which in turn were partly driven
by the increase in average credit levels.
Marketing recognized, however, that any promotional activities directed to those segments
would be futile without participation of the risk management group which monitored and
approved credit limits. A leading indicator focused on measuring the number of approved credit
increases was developed for the risk management area. With this metric in place, marketing
could continue to fund this effort on the basis of the risk management area meeting defined
credit goals. Funding was adjusted largely based on the ongoing performance of this key activity.
The end result of these techniques is a better balance of supporting organizational performance
attributes that will best contribute to marketing goals. In the digital space, where strategic top
line funding needs to connect to the options that are available within digital and measured at an
ROO level, this technique itself can be measured as a competitive differentiator from those
companies that look to efficiently marry opportunity with proper funding.
Contact the author for questions or further discussion: Thomas Manning, Partner, Ninah
Consulting, 1675 Broadway, New York, NY 10019, tom.manning@ninah.com, 781-334-9973.
Contact the Author: Blog LinkedIn

50
“Companies whose
digital strategy
includes consistent,
coordinated cross-
channel marketing
must ensure that any
on-demand systems
can be properly
integrated with the
larger marketing
process.”
David Raab
David Raab is a
consultant specializing in
marketing technology
and analysis. Clients have
included major firms in
financial services, retail,
communications, and
other industries. His B2B
Marketing Automation
Vendor Selection Tool
provides detailed
information and
guidance to buyers of
marketing systems. Mr.
Raab has written
hundreds of articles for
DM Review, DM News
and other industry
publications. Many of
these are available
without charge at
www.archive.raabassoci
atesinc.com.
Aligning Technology and Digital
Marketing Strategies
Technology strategy is how a company uses technology to achieve its
business goals. The business goals themselves are determined by
corporate strategy: typical goals are customer intimacy, lower prices,
or superior product quality.
Those business goals imply business requirements. For example, a
strategy based on customer intimacy requires comprehensive, detailed
information about each customer’s activities, preferences, and needs.
This in turn creates functional requirements such as capture customer
identifiers as they interact across all channels, combine interactions
from multiple channels in a central database, link interactions that
relate to the same customer, and forecast future customer needs from
their past behaviors.
Functional requirements can be met through different technical
approaches. A company might deploy separate channel systems that
feed into a separate, central marketing database or it might deploy a
unified system that manages interactions across all channels using its
own consolidated database.
Technology strategy is about selecting a technical approach and
making sure all technology decisions support that approach. A
company that had decided on separate systems for each channel
would look for best-of-breed digital systems that could easily connect
to the central database, while a company that had chosen a single-
system strategy would look for a system with broad multi-channel
capabilities and a flexible core database.
Warning Signs
The technology choices must also be consistent with other parts of the
business strategy. A company whose business strategy included
minimal capital investment might favor cloud-based systems that can
be deployed and expanded in small steps. One whose strategy
depended on unique capabilities might choose to build custom
systems despite the higher cost and longer lead time. The key to an
effective marketing technology strategy is understanding the larger

51
business strategy and making sure that the marketing systems support it on all levels.
Beyond specific enhancement projects, there are warning signs that your company’s core
marketing technology may itself need replacement. These include fragmented data,
uncoordinated responses to customer needs, and difficulty in making changes to keep up with
new business requirements.
The appropriate response to these symptoms will depend on your company’s technology
strategy. You may need to replace a large central system or simply to upgrade a disconnected
component. Because new technology is often cheaper than previous versions of similar systems,
this won’t necessarily involve an increase in technology investment. But few firms would replace
a well-functioning marketing system simply to reduce technology costs. System change creates
too much disruption and risk.
Digital Strategy Drives Technology Strategy
The digital strategy is one part of the company’s larger business strategy. The strategic roles
assigned to digital marketing will drive many technology requirements. This means that the
technology strategy can only be created after the basic digital strategy is set and the company
has defined its interaction strategy across the entire customer life cycle, from reaching new
prospects through strengthening relationships with satisfied customers. Technology will also
largely determine what data is available to measure ROI and which tools used in those
measurements.
Like digital marketing itself, the technology strategy will evolve over time as new opportunities
appear and as the company adjusts its business plan. However, changing technology platforms is
costly, difficult, and time-consuming. Companies must therefore pick their technology strategy
carefully so they can adapt to new conditions without major changes in their core systems. In
situations where the future themselves are highly uncertain, such as a start-up company in a
new industry, this flexibility is itself a core requirement that the technology strategy must meet.
In more stable situations, technology strategy can focus on other goals such as lower cost or
higher productivity.
Business Case for Technology Investments
Unlike “above the line” marketing expenses such as advertising, technology investments rarely
generate revenue directly. This means technology is generally acquired on a project-by-project
basis as the company identifies specific opportunities that require technology to exploit.
Funding for those projects is usually treated as a capital expense with a traditional Return on
Investment justification. Or, increasingly, new technical capabilities are added through on-
demand services that are purchased on a month-by-month basis without a formal investment
review. This can be dangerous because such purchases are often not managed within the
framework of the company’s technology strategy, leading to short-term benefits but long-term

52
fragmentation, inefficiency, and lost opportunities. Companies whose digital strategy includes
consistent, coordinated cross-channel marketing must ensure that any on-demand systems can
be properly integrated with the larger marketing process.
Technology is often viewed as a cost item, so the formal business case for new technology
investments is often based on reductions in staff time or system operating costs. But these
calculations often ignore the hidden costs of the disruption caused by changing systems. The real
benefits of new technology are usually related to improvements in other marketing areas, such
as better segmentation or more productive advertising purchases. While the precise benefits
from these improvements are often not known in advance, it’s worth making a conservative
rough estimate to ensure the project is likely to be worth the effort.
Improving Technology ROI
Your return depends greatly on the nature of the technology investment and, as previously
noted, often depends on results from the marketing activities managed by the system rather
than the system itself. For example, a $500,000 marketing mix optimization project might result
in a 20% improvement in advertising efficiency – but whether that’s worthwhile depends on the
advertising budget: on a $1million budget, that $500,000 returns just $200,000, for a $300,000
loss; but on a $10 million budget, it returns $2 million, for a $1.5 million profit.
Similarly, it’s not enough to know that marketing automation frequently doubles or triples the
conversion rate of nurtured leads. The ROI depends on how many leads are running through the
system. System costs themselves are just slightly related to volume.
The most expensive system is the one you don’t use. The key to improving returns is to make
sure you acquire systems that will actually contribute to your business. That means systems
which enable worthwhile marketing programs, can be integrated with the rest of your marketing
infrastructure, and can be operated effectively by your staff.
The critical constraint in most marketing departments is the time and attention of marketing
managers, who can pursue only a few new initiatives at a time. As a result, the key to improving
your returns on technology is to rigorously assess the available opportunities and make sure you
pursue the ones with the largest long-term potential.

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