A couple of weeks ago, I attended the Forrester Forum in San Francisco. Some of my colleagues attended Marketo Summit. The different themes at the conferences probably all sound familiar – age of the customer, the customer is now in-charge, engage with the customer ‘in context’, personalize – market to each person specifically based on personal interests and context, integrated marketing – where all applications work seamlessly together, branding is the same as customer experience, etc.

There is nothing wrong with any of that. To be fair, some of the sessions had great content. However, more than the presentations – what got my attention was the informal conversations with both fellow marketers and analysts; also, more than the content itself – what intrigued me was what that meant to companies and the market; and finally more than what was said – what got me thinking was what was left unsaid.

What do I mean?

1) Web Sites (other than Google and Amazon) have become slower

Think about a typical web site – it has content, but it also has software coming out of its ears. CMS, Social, Marketing Automation, Marketing Optimization, Back-end integration to CRM and much more. Web Performance Today published an article that talks about slowing web sites with clear proof points.

Are there exceptions? Sure. Amazon and Google come to mind.

2) Marketing has become complicateD

Technology is supposed to simplify things. It is supposed to help you understand your market better, reduce costs, and increase revenue. Marketers tell us that marketing has become way more complicated in the last 5 years. Why? The answers were varied but centered around three themes:

• There are too many technologies and systems;

• There is far too much content; and

• There are way too many ways to do online marketing.

Even larger enterprises are struggling to figure out what and where to prioritize, and how to have an overall-strategy to nirvana while ensuring sound operational execution. For mid-sized and smaller companies the problem is further compounded due to constrained resources and program dollars – they pretty much throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks – this is an exaggeration but not by a whole lot.

Nobody has the answers but consulting firms, marketing services firms, and analysts are having a field day.

3) Gathering data is fine; Actionable insights are difficult and rare, even todaY

If you chart the buying journey – from initial interest for your product to a visit to your web site to engagement to leads to opportunities to dollars, there are probably 20 metrics. Now, if you add ‘context’ to the mix – where did the buyer come from? What location were they at? What device were they using? Etc. You can go about 10 levels deep, for each of the 20 metrics. If you add ‘program specific and time specific’ parameters – you can add a third and sometimes a fourth dimension to the data.

IF you had all this data, you would still need great data-professionals to scrub it to ensure it is valid & authentic; and a data scientist to study and analyze it to come up with the insights. The challenge though is that no single system captures all this data – not even enterprise class systems have full and holistic integration especially at the data layer level. That means the number of marketing applications proliferates and you have a bunch of data-silos compounding your challenge of being able to get real actionable insights.

The only system that seemed to have both the breadth and depth to make this happen was from IBM – but even that would need a ton of work, a ton of dollars and a ton of time to roll-out – the system reminded me of the ERP systems of the 90s. This would cost millions of dollars – at the low end.

So, most companies try to draw boundaries, look at the data, infer to the best extent possible for a context – and execute based on a combination of some data and a lot of subjective judgment. There is nothing wrong with that – I am just saying that is where things are.

4) Nurturing, Scoring et al is fine – But, we will call everyone who visits uS

Everybody talks about data and analytics. The companies that use it best today are consumer companies. Most B2B companies (including the so called marketing companies themselves) are so starved of leads that they have a low threshold and begin calling or reaching out to even top of the funnel prospects with a sales message.

With so much content, so much SEO/SEM spend, and so many companies out to get the consumer’s attention in so many different channels – why should this be a surprise? This is reality. I have received calls from SDRs at some leading marketing companies after ‘very limited’ engagement on their web site (e.g. downloading a single white paper. There is ‘no scoring,’ ‘nurturing’, or ‘algorithm’ here – it is basically handing me off to the SDRs because you captured my contact information. If you aren’t even able to eat your own dog-food ... Hmmm!).

5) The Internet Is Not This Great Equalizer

There was a time when all thought that the Internet had ‘democratized’ the world – and a 10 person shop in Peoria with a web site could compete with anybody in the world as long as they had good products and services because they could now be ‘reachable by the world.’ Even if that time at all existed, it was only for a very small time window. Today, everybody is on the web. That means succeeding in business online is just as hard as it was offline – it is just that the rules are different. The amount of software that you need to have an effective online web presence today is mind-boggling.

6) No marketing software vendor has delivered nirvanA

Case studies, customer videos and testimonials aside – no marketing software vendor has been able to deliver a complete solution that moves the needle. Why? Because it is too complicated. Because there are too many moving parts. Because not everything can be automated. Because not everything can be measured, scored and filed away. Because ...

7) Marketers have less control than before and they are adjusting to that new reality

You can see who comes to your web site. You can personalize your web site. You can influence and guide them. You can score them. You can MAKE them buy your product. Right? Wrong. The new reality is that brands count for less. Loyalty doesn’t matter. NPS scores are still important but not as important as before.

Customers are more independent minded than before. Fewer customers replace their current car with a car from the same maker EVEN IF they are satisfied with it. This is a big shift in the last few years. This is the new reality. Past performance counts way less in a buyer’s purchase decision today.

8) Marketers spend more today than before

Photo source: Chris Potter on flickr.

Internet, Freemium, Try before you buy, et al was supposed to reduce marketing expenses, and put dollars back in the hands of the customer.Nothing could be further from the truth. Marketing spend has increased. The only change is that the ‘channels of spend’ are now different.

Google and Facebook are big because of marketing spend. Thanks to SEO, SEM, Social et al, the number of marketing consultants today is the highest ever in marketing’s history. There are hundreds of software applications focused on marketing today.

9) Personalization has its limits

Software vendors would have you believe that ‘personalization’ is the cure for cancer.

“You are able to show the site visitor exactly what they want to see based on their browsing history, their profile, and their origin.” 

Nothing could be further from the truth. Preferences are labile. Consumers are human beings, which means that most of them have limited self-insight.

In addition, their buying behavior is influenced by others whom you don’t directly control. Also, you can never know everything about them because that will raise privacy issues. Personalization can help you play the odds. Can you beat the odds? The jury is still out.

So, where do we go from here? I run a company that sells marketing applications to the mid-market. So, I should know for sure, right? I don’t know. Nobody does. But, here is my perspective on:

How To Adapt To The New Marketing Reality

1) Don’t buy software because it is fashionable

Whether it is the CEO of a small company who buys software because he can ‘show nice charts’ to the BOD, or the CMO of a mid-sized company who buys software so he can justify his and his team’s efforts to his peers and the CEO, that isn’t reason enough to buy.

Dig a level deeper. Ask yourself exactly what you can do in real business terms without any software – then ask yourself what you could do with something basic and simple – then ask yourself what you could do with something that has even more features – then ask yourself what a full scale enterprise system could do for you. If you answer this honestly, at some point you will begin to see diminishing returns for the investment and for the effort.

That will give you a sense of what type of software to buy for your needs. Buying Lithium, Jive or Marketo just because your peer has that same software OR because the salesperson sent you a logo-list of companies in your vertical will be counter-productive. Plenty of people have fallen prey to this. Some have been burned by it. Some will be burned by it.

2) Don’t try to boil the ocean

Photo source: Malcolm Manners on flickr.

Yes, understanding your entire buyer’s journey and having all that data would be great. You could make such great recommendations, have such great insights that result in such rapid growth that you would be better than a rock-star. The only problem? It is impossible.

Define a clear problem. Be very specific. Make sure the solution to that problem has a definite ROI. Use software to solve that specific problem in a clear and defined time-frame. Don’t take the traditional approach of making an excel spreadsheet of features for comparison – and end up buying the most expensive software there is in the market because that vendor had ‘green’ in all the rows of your excel sheet. That is passé. That is ineffective. That is how purchasing managers buy things – not marketers, and not business professionals.

3) Have tight time-lines for ROI

If you buy a piece of software and it takes many months to even begin to use it, and many quarters to get a benefit – you are off the wrong start. In today’s world, with technology and user experience being what they are – rolling out a piece of software, seeing ‘some’ benefits and working on increasing the benefits incrementally shouldn’t be that hard. If it is that difficult – it is more likely because the vendor operates on the traditional ERP-based enterprise software model than as a modern software company.

4) Data Nirvana takes time

Data Nirvana can and should be your true north. That should be your vision – but you also need strategy, shorter-term prioritization and execution. You may never achieve data nirvana. Even if you do, it will likely take you way too long. The key is to use data to ‘experiment’ and ‘iterate’. Use data for small, defined and closed experiments without worrying about connecting the dots completely. That way, the data is both immediately useful, and if you do connect the dots completely – it is useful again, making it a double victory.

5) Focus on ‘others’ – i.e. not just your potential buyers but the people who influence your buyers

People increasingly are making decisions based on what ‘others’ are saying about the product they are looking to buy. Way more people look at Yelp before going to a restaurant than ever before. Way more people look at Angie’s list reviews before calling plumber. Way more people are looking at a LinkedIn profile (including recommendations) before interviewing a candidate. What started with B2C is slowly moving to B2B. It is therefore imperative that you as a vendor focus on the ‘others’ that people will reference before they even talk to you.

6) You don’t have control: Get over iT

Irrespective of how much technology you buy, implement and use – the current reality makes it very difficult for you to directly control the market. Focus on what you can do to influence the market, and influence buyers. This world is more abstract. It is more superfluous (despite OR perhaps because of all the instrumentation and the data). The more you are used to it – the more comfortable you will be – and the better you will perform as a marketer.

7) Be suspicious of enterprise software that costs an arm and a leg

Some people seem to be trying to re-invent the 90s ERP era. That era is long gone. Be suspicious of any software that costs too much, takes too long to get going, and promises to move heaven and earth. Buy software that is easy to use and doesn’t require too much training, that can be deployed in a reasonable amount of time, and provides you some positive results quickly. If the nature of the software OR the problem is such that it takes a big investment in time – take care to break down the project (and your dollar investments), define clear milestones and manage it very very carefully.

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