2010 March | Marketing Operations at Work

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Marketing leaders today are in an unprecedented position to help organizations achieve their objectives in increasingly competitive and dynamic markets. Marketing Operations Partners is one the first services companies focused on changing the MO of marketing by leveraging the emerging discipline of Marketing Operations. To address this significant challenge—and opportunity - Marketing Operations Partners provides a ready-to-go COO and change management team consisting of leading thought leaders in the marketing community. Our team includes subject matter experts in the areas of lead generation and nurturing, customer experience management, process design, strategic planning process facilitation, technology assessment, organizational diagnosis, change management, ROI analysis, business intelligence, and marketing, sales and product alignment. For more information, visit www.mopartners.com.

March 24, 2010

Increasing the Value of Marketing Operations with Predictive Analytics

Today our Marketing Analytics team lead, Creig Foster, dives into the sexy topic of predictive analytics (PA). Why are we so enamored with PA? One of my students, the Marketing Operations leader at fast-growing software company, captured the essence of why PA is compelling in a recent essay: “I have a better chance of my marketing department growing and my personal relevance moving up the food chain if I can predict the future – plain and simple.” So if that’s the case, why aren’t more marketing leaders actively applying PA in their marketing strategies (particularly in the B2B world)? Perhaps they just don’t yet understand the many PA applications that are available to run their Marketing Operations better. Creig’s aticle takes some of the mystery out of the magic of predictive analytics. Gary

Increasing the Value of Marketing Operations with Predictive Analytics

by Creig Foster

A recent blog post by James Kobielus of Forrester Research advances the idea that business success depends on your company’s capability to see likely future outcomes and take appropriate steps now to realize them. He goes on to say that predicting future scenarios successfully, laying plans and deploying the needed resources is critical in seizing opportunities, minimizing threats and mitigating risks. I fully support this view and believe that for a company to be successful these days it must use predictive analytics to its fullest extent.

So what is Predictive Analytics? From the all knowing source, Wikipedia, “Predictive analytics encompasses a variety of techniques from statistics, data mining, and game theory that analyze current and historical facts to make predictions about future events.” You might ask yourself what is the big deal; humans do this sort of thing all the time. Yes, but predictive analytics takes in huge amounts of data, analyzes complex interrelationships, and discerns patterns in the data that the human mind could not possibly see. Besides, the models can do their processing 24/7 without making a mistake.

Kobielus goes on to state that the “grand promise of predictive analytics – still largely unrealized in most companies – is that it will become ubiquitous, guiding all decisions, transactions, and applications.” For a company (large or small) to become a truly predictive enterprise, I believe it will take more than an investment in the technology and people to accomplish this transition. It also takes a change in how a company thinks about its business.

Instead of a reactive response to challenges and opportunities as they are presented, I believe that a proactive and investigative approach to building the business is enabled by predictive analytics. Yes, I know we all plan with the best intentions of positive outcomes. What I am suggesting is using predictive analytics in making decisions about future directions and strategy. In other words, the use of predictive analytics should become part of the way a company thinks about its business and a cornerstone of the overall business strategy.

Read the complete article here.

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March 12, 2010

Social Media ROI?????

Filed under: Marketing Automation, Marketing Operations Big Picture, Marketing Operations Strategy, Marketing Scalability, Return on Marketing, Sales Acceleration, Sales and Buying Acceleration, Social Media, twitter — Tags: measure, metric, NewComm Forum, return on investment, Return on Marketing, Social Media, social media ROI, track — Gary_Katz @ 4:42 pm

Whether in a new business process, in conversation with current client executives or via a daily supply of Tweets from Social Media experts and wannabees alike, the subject of ROI has become a mantra for those either advocating or trying to embrace Social Media.

If I hear one more marcom director ask me what kind of ROI they can expect from an investment in Social Media, I might just throw a bucket of water on him or her (<:}.

Or perhaps, more appropriately, his or her boss.

It seems people have forgotten that the purpose of Social Media:

To build quality two-way relationships with customers, partners and other stakeholders.
To mutually exchange information, insight and thought leadership.
To naturally attract the right people with whom to do business when they are willing and ready to do business with you

Social Media is not a replacement for a company or product brand, but it certainly can help reinforce brand (it can wonderfully augment public relations and customer service, for example).

It is not a lead generator, though over time a company will organically receive leads through Social Media efforts (a strong Social Media presence is a powerful support system for new product launches and gaining critical insight from customer and developer communities, for example, to hone the innovation process).

Social Media is not a vehicle for aggressive, “won’t take no for an answer” salespeople or spin-doctor marketers to apply their old-school sales and marketing tactics to manipulate customers to buy. (in face, the use of such invasive and overly-persuasive approaches is actually a barrier to the wholehearted embracement of Social Media).

So what about ROI?

Well first, let’s remember this a brand new channel so when your company decides to enter the Social Media world, do so with an investment mentality. The payout is highly unlikely to be in a few months. It might be a few years.

Second, defining what ROI is for Social Media is not straightforward. What do you measure and track? How does that measurable outcome link back to your enterprise strategic objectives? How does Social Media fit into your overall Marketing strategy in contributing to the success of the enterprise?

Remember, Social Media is an unchartered and mostly standard-less world. Even if your company has established what it is going to measure and track, it probably doesn’t have enough history with Social Media to be able to project specific desired outcomes with a high degree of confidence. Examples of success in Social Media are still the exception, not the norm. Few companies can state with absolute certainty that a success triggered through a Social Media effort wouldn’t have happened anyway through some other marketing or sales approach.

So, Social Media ROI??? Good to think about. Good to begin to define. Good to track. But, ROI? Forgetaboutit! At least until you have a seriously well-established SM program, anyway.

_____________________________________________________________

Speaking of Social Media, as you may recall, Marketing Operations Partners is a sponsor of NewCommForum 2010.

Today is the final day to register and take advantage of Early Bird discounts for NewComm Forum 2010.

If you want to take advantage of a significant price break, register today at http://www.facebook.com/l/18c3d;www.newcommforum.com

Use the Marketing Operations Partners discount code, NCF2010MOP, to save an additional $100.

NewComm Forum will feature:

* 5 in-depth workshops with experts Geoff Livingston, Kami Huyse, Katie Paine, Shel Holtz, Paul Gillin, Susan Getgood, Chuck Hester, and Nancy Duarte for only $195 each for a 1/2-day or $295 for a full-day workshop if you register today!

* 40 sessions in five tracks covering everything from social CRM to social media program development, management and measurement, from online communities to online video and podcasting.

* 5 keynote presentations by online marketing expert and author Jackie Huba; Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora; Scott Monty of Ford; Jack Holt of the DoD; and social media and communications expert Neville Hobson.

Hope to see you San Mateo, CA next month!

Gary

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