by scott.gillum | Oct 13, 2020 | 2020, Business Trends
Estimated read time: 5 Minutes
This post ran original on The Drum on September 30th it can be viewed by clicking here
Thank you Covid, we just broke the record for poor performance. According to Hubspot, the response rate to emails fell to a record low of 2.1% in April. Said differently, 98% of our efforts to reach new prospects failed.
With conversion down what did we do? You guessed it, we increased the number of emails sent during the same period by 50%, according to Hubspot’s survey of 70,000 customers. We are playing a zero sum game, and it’s literally a race to the bottom.
Why is this acceptable? Yes, the pandemic has had a dramatic impact, but even in good times, a 4% click through rate is the benchmark. Why haven’t we been able to improve?
Because the only real lever we really had was to increase volume as conversion rates declined. Now with the advent of new tools, we’re uncovering issues and learning new insights into how to improve performance. Here are 3 things we have discovered so far.
Issue #1 – The Wrong Objectives
Marketing has, because of the pressure from the rest of the organization (from mostly sales and the product organization) lost sight of its objectives. Marketing’s goal is to increase the awareness and interest in a company’s brand, product and/or services and get that prospect to take action. It’s to start the cycle, get a conversation going and drive interest.
A good marketing prospect is an information seeker. Employees who are on the constant lookout for information that benefits them personally, in their role, or for the greater good of the company. A great marketing prospect is someone who will bring our information into the organization, get the buying process started and advocate for your brand.
The point, what we are defining is a personality type, not a title. In the past that has been very difficult to identify. As a result, we have had to rely on mining the existing customer database or using a persona that was defined by the product or sale organization which has left us with senior level buyers.
The problem with that is many of these targets, who are decision makers or budget holders, are not present at the beginning of the buyer’s journey. And as we now know, they are also not interested in what we’re offering.
Issue #2 – The Wrong Targets
With the advent of personality profiling tools like Crystal Knows, IBM Watson, or xiQ, it is now possible to determine which personality types are most likely to meet the needs of marketing.
AI enabled profiling tools identify 4 personality types as defined by DISC (Dominant, Influencing, Steady and Conscientious). Of the four personalities, only 2 types of audiences are good for marketing purposes because of their behaviors and motivations.
Based on our recent client work across the healthcare, tech and professional services industries, we also know that at least 30% of a company’s customers will profile into one of the two categories that are either not active information seekers or are not active in the buying group.
They will not convert, but given our current practices, they still end up on the target list driving down response and conversion rates.
Issue #3 – The Wrong Type of Content or Marketing Assets or Both
The two key audience segments that are present at the beginning of the buying process and actively seek information have different motivations for why, and how they intend to use information.
When targeting titles, companies create one type of content based on that buyer’s role. With personality profiling we know that audiences have different preferences for content and how it’s packaged.
The first personality type prefers “big picture” highly visual content told in story form. These “motivators” are drawn to infographics, animated and testimonial videos, which allow them to grasp concepts very quickly.
Their personality type is “altruistic” and they use information to share with others for the good of the organization. Their motivations are deeply personal in that they like to be seen or perceived as a “thought leader” that others seek out for insight.
Contrast that with the other active information seeker. The “demonstrator” profile seeks information relevant to them in their role. They want “proven” information, use cases, case studies, and business case material (ROI’s). Content that is rich in information on how to implement and business impact.
Combined, these two groups will make up 70% of your responders to marketing activities depending on what it is, and you need to know how that mixes to build and align content. And here’s a hint, you only need two types of personas for marketing…the two I just described.
We are dealing with a future that is more uncertain than anything we have experienced in the past. Add to that an election, polarization and social justice movements we have one of the most emotionally charged atmospheres in modern history. ABM and personas do not delve deep enough into defining buyers interest, motivations and preferences.
To improve marketing performance you have to ramp up personality based marketing and that will require work. Not everyone will be willing to put in the effort, but the ones that are will break the chain of putting more in and getting less out.
by scott.gillum | Aug 18, 2020 | 2020, Marketing
by Scott Gillum
Estimated read time: 2 Minutes
Antonio Ramírez, CEO at Pixel506 and Scott Gillum, CEO & Founder of Carbon Design discuss what you need to know about Digital Marketing newest trends. Topics discussed will be managing work and family life balance and how to keep employees engaged, productive and appreciated.
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by scott.gillum | Jun 18, 2018 | 2018, Opinion
The experience of selling our house has been a good reminder of the importance of goodwill in the negotiating process.
We were fortunate to get a couple of offers on our home. Hearing feedback from our neighbors and realtors, we learned that one couple with young children really loved our home, especially the trampoline in the backyard!
As we responded to the offers we made it clear to the realtor of a family with the young children that we really wanted them to have the house. Our children, now in college, were a similar age when we first bought the house. The neighborhood was a great place to raise kids and we thought it would be nice to “complete the circle.”
And that’s when the trouble started. Our counteroffer made it clear that we were negotiating in good faith trying to meet the couple in the “middle.” Except they didn’t. They stood their ground forgoing the traditional comprise an approach to pursuing a “we win, you lose” stance. As an emotionally charged seller, I can confirm that this tactic did not go over well.
The disconnect was that we were selling a home full of memories which we wanted to pass along to another young family. As the buyers, they were just making a purchase decision at the best price as possible. It was a transaction for them. And with that, they took out all of the goodwill.
For example, the family was moving to the area from out of town. We’ve lived in the area for thirty years, 14 years in our current location. There are things that would have been helpful to know about our home, our neighborhood and our community. Our children attended the school their children will mostly attend. Played on the soccer fields, and in the school gyms where their kids will play. Insights from a resident on teachers, coaches, neighbors are usually helpful to someone new to an area.
Because they changed the rules of the game none of that conveyed. The relationship had been killed. Think about that when you’re negotiating a business deal. Deals are made between humans so emotions are involved. In the end, you may get your price but at what cost? What goodwill may have been lost? What could the seller tell you that could help with implementation, use of the product/service, etc.
The secret to a good deal is that both parties feel like they gave up something but that they also got something in return. You may feel good about the short-term gain — but by making the other party the “loser” it might cost you in long run.
by scott.gillum | Jan 19, 2016 | 2016, Marketing
Go ahead and get mad at me. Feel free to fill up the comment section below. I’m going to share our closely held secrets with sales people, skeptics and other critics of marketing. I know you would rather I not, but it’s best for all of us, trust me. Here we go…
#1 – You got lucky – if you generate leads off the first drop/wave of a new account acquisition or a lead generation campaign for a solution, you’re more likely to be lucky, than right. Yea, you may have had a compelling offer, and the call to action was intriguing, but the chances are, you just happened to hit a prospect at the right time.
Sure, in some industries you can buy data that identifies a company’s spend on certain products or services. But you don’t know if the budget is available, what portion of it, or who controls it. And since this is a prospect, you are most likely targeting a title, which could be a decision maker, a budget holder, or just a curious information seeker.
At the beginning of a campaign you simply don’t have the information on a prospect to know where they are, or how to advance them in the buying process. So, if a prospect does put their hand up and says, “Call me,” you most likely hit them at the right time in the buyers’ journey.
#2 – Your messaging is weak – the effectiveness of your message is being compromised by the fact that you are trying to motivate an audience to think or feel differently without explaining why. According to Pat Spenner, co-author of the new book entitled The Challenger Customer, marketers spend too much time focusing on how they want audiences to think, or feel, without understanding their current mindset.
Research for the book found that the receptiveness and/or openness to a message depends heavily on an audience’s existing belief system, which drives their behavior. According to Spenner, marketers first need to understand and break down the audience’s current mindset using insights about their business, customers, markets, etc. It’s an opportunity to “teach” audiences that their current thinking is no longer valid and why a new way of thinking is needed. If done well, the new mindset will uniquely lead them back to your product/services or brand.
For example, Merck developed the cholesterol-lowering drug Mevacor at a time when doctors knew little about the effects of cholesterol on the body. The current mindset was that hypertension (high blood pressure) caused heart disease. Merck used clinical research to show doctors the impact of high levels of cholesterol on arteries and the correlation of plaque buildup with coronary heart disease (the “teaching” moment).
As a result, doctors should test patient’s cholesterol levels to see if they are at risk. If a patient had a LDL cholesterol level above a certain point, doctors should start with a therapy regiment that included diet and drug treatment (the new mindset). The only cholesterol-lowering agent available at the time was, you guessed it, Mevacor. Merck, by getting doctors to change their mindset about the causes of heart disease, lead them back to their product. As Spenner puts it, effective story telling for marketers should “lead to, not with.”
#3 – You’re doing lead nurturing the wrong way – changing mindsets takes time. Yes, you’ve built prospect profiles, aligned content to their interest, and you may even know how to engage them in their preferred communication channel. The problem may not be your content marketing efforts but the fact that prospects are stuck in the status quo. They may find your information interesting, but it hasn’t convinced or motivated them to change their behavior.
Nurturing efforts should continue to break down, or build up, the new mindset across the buying group. The ability to drive specific information aligned to individual buyer’s needs may actually be causing more dysfunction within an already dysfunctional group. To advance a prospect/s refocus efforts on driving consensus on the issue and solution within the buying group. If done correctly, like Merck, prospects will come to own conclusions that you offer the best solution for their needs.
Motivating an audience to change doesn’t happen overnight. Unfortunately, marketers are under constant pressure to perform and rarely have the luxury of time to change their approach. It’s the reason I shared the first dirty secret, to buy marketers time to create the type of campaigns that deliver insights told as a story revealed over time.
The first wave of your campaign will generate leads, but it’s the waves that come after that really count. If marketers can stop telling customers why they need their product and let them come to that conclusion on their own, response and conversion rates will double based on my experience. But don’t tell anyone, it’s a secret.
