Go on ... Light the Fuse

The Marketing Pipeline (Part 1) ...

The key role of the Marketing function is to feed  the Sales force with qualified and actionable leads, with whom to engage. This role could therefore be synthesised down to generating, nurturing and qualifying of actionable sales leads, via the Marketing Pipeline.

The same principles can be applied in both the B2B & B2C environment, although the sales activity maybe delivered in a different manner, depending upon whether the sales channel is delivered on-line or off-line.

Regardless of the shape of your pipeline, fat, thin, long or short, it needs to be designed to deliver two major outcomes ... 

• Qualified Leads.
• Potential Contributors.

Often ignored, Potential Contributors, are those Unqualified Leads that you actively choose to exit from the pipeline, because they can not meet the criteria for qualification. The aim is not simply to exit them, but to do so in such a way, that they can still contribute to marketing your product or service. They can still support your efforts by communicating there experiences amongst their network, either via word of mouth or via their on-line social network, indeed remember that some of these Unqualified Leads may be journalists.

Sales Readiness: The two pipelines meet ...

The starting point to align the Marketing and Sales pipeline is to agree a definition for a Qualified Lead, within the overall business context and an understanding of the Sales Process. This definition could be formed based upon of factors within the prospect:

• Need
• Value
• Opportunity
• Person
• Readiness

Given that the handover from Marketing to Sales is likely to trigger an intensive period of activity (especially in a B2B environment) with the Lead, it is vital that the Sales force do not waste their time chasing Leads that have not truly been Qualified. In a resource limited environment, this can represent a significant Opportunity Cost.

The emphasis should be placed upon an optimum balance of quality & quantity that must result in a clear set of performance metrics for the Marketing team:

Qualified Lead Forecast: A measure of the effectiveness and velocity of the Marketing Pipeline. is whether the forecast number of Qualified Leads are being delivered to Sales, for a given period

Conversion Ratio: Although this is equally a measure of the performance of the Sales Pipeline, it could also reflect the quality of Qualified Leads. Definition: Over a defined period of time, the ratio of "Qualified Leads" converted to "Customers".

Lead Re-Qualification Ratio: A measurement of the quality of Lead Qualification. Over a defined period of time, the ratio of "Qualified Leads" to "the number of Qualified Leads that where handed back to Marketing", i.e., the lead was not ready to engage in the Sales process.

Enquiry Management: Are you switch selling or exiting leads?

Your Lead Generation activity has worked!! Enquiries are hitting your website, which is beautifully designed and provides clear and concise company, product and contact information. However, people take you up on your invitation to "Contact us for further information".

Handling the resulting contacts is an integral part of the Marketing Pipeline. The responses you provide contribute to whether Leads progress through or exit from your pipeline.

Remember that they have taken time to compose an email or to call, so have a more than passive interest in your product or service. Any response must be timely and attempt to nurture the Lead. The challenge is to ensure that the response process minimise the number of Leads you accidentally exit and maximises qualification opportunities & intentional exits.

Example: We recently purchase a new refrigerator, but required a Left Hand Door opening. A particular manufacturer has a product portfolio which covers two different door specifications:  

• Right Hand Doors - see picture. 
• Reversible Doors - allows the end user to customise whether the door opens Left Handed or Right Handed.

Having found a product we liked, it was not clear from their website whether the product had the correct door, which resulted in a contact from us to clarify the specification ... "I am interested in your retro refrigerator XYZ123, however from the description and picture I notice it only has a right-hand opening. Do you do a left-hand opening version?"

Despite the clear statement of interest in the product and question regarding specification, the response from the Reception Desk of the manufacturer was ... "Hello, I am afraid we only offer in our range of retro refrigeration the right hand side hinge opening and unfortunately the doors are not reversible."

At this point we gave up and investigated a similar product from SMEG. We accidentally exited their pipeline.

 

In the current economic climate, no business, large or small can let Sales opportunities slip through their fingers and allow leads to accidentally exit their Marketing Pipeline. Even if the enquiry cannot be satisfied with an exact match, the response process should to designed, to maintain a dialogue, in order to verify the requirement and level of interest and if necessary switch sell an alternative product, if one is available.

The above manufacturer, had numerous Left Hand Door refrigerators in their portfolio, but never suggested an alternative product. Proposing alternatives, could have kept is in their pipeline a little longer and avoided us purchasing from a competitor.  

Lead Generation: Facilitating mobile responses ...

Traditionally the call to action for a large proportion of advertising, is to call a number, send a text message or visit a particular website, with numerous well understood techniques for measuring response rates and advertising effectiveness, such as Promotion Codes, Tracking URLs and Number Diversity.

In a mobile environment, the challenge is to improve the effectiveness of advertising through increased response rates. One approach is to improve the experience of fulfilling the call to action, by removing the need to remember the numbers, URLs or SMS codes, contained in the advert. 

Two competing technologies, that utilise the capabilities of internet enabled camera phones, have been developed to meet this challenge.

 

QR CODES:

A QR Code (Quick Response Code) is a matrix code created by Japanese corporation Denso Wave, in the form of a two-dimensional barcode, that can store up to 7 KB of data. The matrix code can be used to directly encode, plain text, telephone numbers, SMS and email message, contact cards, geographic information, images or other information.

When the QR code is scanned, using a camera phone with a QR Code Reader, the phone prompts the User to perform the action encoded in the matrix.

A QR Code printed on a item of marketing collateral, could therefore be used to ease the response  to that material, by encoding the response instructions. The QR Code below, contains a link through to our website, via a tracking URL (www.pleasestandback.co.uk/redirect/inqrcode1.html), inorder to measure click through using Google Analytics.

(Go on ... Scan me)

This mechanism is widely used in Japan and Asia, and is starting to be used more frequently in Europe and the USA. For example, Pepsi adopted QR Codes to support their Pepsi Max Kicks promotion.

Benefits:

• Reader Availability: QR Code Readers are widely available for the majority of mobile phones, with manufacturers such as Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson making them available as a standard feature within their phones or as an application download. According to Mobile Marketing Magazine, "approximately 25 million handsets across 150 different models in the UK are capable of accepting a reader", including the Apple iPhone.
• Wide Range of Response Types: QR Codes support the widest set of response types, which should be sufficient for most mobile campaigns.

Disadvantages:

• Measurement: It is possible, using existing mechanisms to measure the number of responses to a particular QR Code. However unless an action is completed, it is not possible to measure the number of times a particular code has been scanned. 
• Reader consistency: QR Code readers are available from a wide number of developers, as such there are inconsistencies between differing implementations and how they interpret different codes.
• Barcode size: As camera quality can vary across different handset types, care has to be taken when selecting the size of the QR Code, in order balance against code readability.

 

MICROSOFT TAGS:

Launched at CES2008, Microsoft Tags have been described by some commentators as Barcode2.0.  Utilising a different coding technique, known as High Capacity Colour  Barcodes (HCCB), Tags do not directly contain the response data itself, but encode a Link to a Microsoft server hosting the barcode contents. This allows the barcde to be physically smaller than the QR Code equivalent, however unlike a QR Code, in order to decode the contents of a Tag, a Tag Reader must first access a Microsoft server via an IP connection, to download the Tag contents.

Currently in BETA in the USA, the response types support by Microsoft Tags, are limited compared to QR Codes.

The Tag below, again contains a link to our website, again via an tracking URL (www.pleasestandback.co.uk/redirect/inmtag1.html), in order to measure click through from this tag using Google Analytics.

(Go on ... Scan me)

Benefits:

• Measurement: As the Reader accesses a server in order to decode the Tag contents, it is possible to measure the number of scans of a particular Tag, as well as the resulting responses (allowing measurement of  Impressions, Scans and Click Through). This is a significant advantage over QR Codes.
• Consistency of Experience: As there is a single developer of the Tag Reader, this should ensure a high degree of consistency in user experience across multiple devices and platform types.

Disadvantages:

• Network Connection: As a network IP connection is required in order to download the tag contents:
  • Tags do not work well in environments where there is no network coverage.
  • Each scan incurs a chargeable event for the User.   
• Roaming Charges: Although many operators offer flat rate data tariffs, these typically only apply when within the Users home network. When Roaming, data charges can be significantly higher. Unlike other Microsoft applications, the Microsoft Tag Reader application provides no indication that additional charges maybe incurred whilst Roaming. Compare this against both Active Sync and Windows Live, where the User is explicitly prompted to allow the applications to function when Roaming.
• Restricted Range of Response Types: Unlike QR Codes, Microsoft Tags currently supports a restricted range of response types and misses out on the SMS and Email capabilities of QR Codes, which could be necessary for some campaign types.
• Print Costs: Although it is possible to generate black & white versions of Tags (they are larger then their colour equivalent), the full colour version utilise 5 colours. Depending upon print techniques and suppliers, the use of full colour Tags could add significantly to print costs, particularly over large production runs.  
• Reader Availability: A Tag reader is available to download from Microsoft, for Windows Mobile, Symbian, Blackberry, iPhone and J2ME enabled phones. In future it is likely that Microsoft will embed the reader in its own mobile operating system, it is unlikely that other device manufacturers will do the same.

 

CONCLUSIONS:

Until Microsoft Tags comes out of BETA and the commercial conditions (if any) for using the service becomes clearer, QR Codes remain the most viable alternative, given their flexibility and availability of pre-installed code readers in mobile phones. Although it may be necessary to download an application to use the codes, an increasing number of consumers are willing to do so, through the education efforts of Apple with it's iPhone.

Pepsi and other companies have shown that QR Codes have a place to play in facilitating mobile responses to advertising or promotions, however they will only positively influence on response rates, if they are combined with consumer education as to the benefits of the codes and compelling  creative &promotions.

Notes:

Download a Microsoft Tag Reader at http://www.microsoft.com/tag/content/download/
Download a QR Code Reader at http://www.i-nigma.com/personal/GetReader.asp

 

 

Enquiry Management: Avoiding deadends ...

It is probably stating the obvious, that in order to Qualify Enquiries and progress to Nurturing Prospects, it is essential to capture appropriate data regarding the Enquiry. Unless this is done, it is simply not possible to build a CRM database and progress prospects through the Sales Funnel.

Or is it that obvious, given that their are many examples of companies who fail to capture data. For example, we recently came across a company, who went to the trouble of pre-announced the availability of their product via a PR campaign and trade shows, and in addition provided a website with the ability to "preorder" their product. However their Sales Funnel terminates, at the "Where To Buy" page of the website, with the message ...

"Sorry not currently available in your area". 

Note: Branding has been removed from the example web page, to protect the identity of the site owner.

Although this is obviously intended as a "holding statement", the site offers no other options to Register visitors, thus no data is captured. Therefore the company has no possibility to proactively follow up with appropriate communication, when the product does become available in the area.  The company are therefore discarding potential leads.

ROI Measurement.

Appropriate data capture of enquiries is the fundamental building block  for any Lead Management programme and enables more robust measurement of the effectiveness of Lead Generation activities. Instead of relying on simplistic measurements, such as Advertising Equivalent Spend, Site Visits, etc, which focus on potential awareness, it becomes possible to measure the effectiveness and velocity of the Sales Funnel, based upon measurable Leads and Conversions.