Marketers today are being held accountable for their contribution to revenue. But with so many channels, so many content pieces, and long sales cycles...how do you keep track of it all? How do you pull in analytics for offline channels? How do you know what content and what channels are working? How do you optimize that mix so that you end up with the best possible results?
Learn best practices from BrightFunnel VP of Marketing, Dayna Rothman!
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How to Measure and Optimize Your Multi-Channel Strategy
1. How to Measure and Optimize
Your Multi-Channel Strategy
Dayna Rothman, VP of
Marketing and Sales
Development at BrightFunnel
2. Revenue Funnel Analysis
Forecasting and Prediction
Data Validation and Process Optimization
Sales Activity Analysis
Marketing Attribution Tracking
ABM Analytics
Web Tracking and Ad Network Integration
Independent Platform Solution
Revenue Funnel Analysis
Forecasting and Prediction
Data Validation and Process Optimization
Sales Activity Analysis
3. 88% of marketers cite the ability to measure
and analyze marketing impact as a top priority
this year. – DemandGen Report
4. Leveraging data to determine what marketing
and sales touches work throughout your funnel
enables you to better orchestrate your customer
journey…
…and show marketing’s impact on revenue.
5. Establish goals and measurement estimates up front
Define what you want to measure by channel and by program
Align with all key stakeholders and get their input
Create a culture of measurement on your team
Focus on data cleanliness
Determine communication cadence
Getting Started: Take the Following Steps
6. Today’s buyer journey is complex. Interactions take place
on multiple channels, in multiple ways. So how do you
know what is working?
7. Lead Generation
• Paid programs and ads
• Events
• Webinars/Virtual Events
• Website/Content
• Social
• SEO
Funnel Acceleration
• Database Blasts
• Email Nurturing
• Account-Based
Marketing
• Accelerator Programs
• Retargeting Ads
• Direct Mail
Brand Awareness
• Social
• Content
• Events
• Blog
• Influencer Marketing
• Direct Mail
Marketers Do A Lot!
8. But…a lot of programs are based on guesswork. The Holy
Grail of marketing is turning the buyer journey into a
science.
9. • First-touch attribution — what brings people into your funnel
• Multi-touch attribution — look at every marketing touch to see what
accelerates people through your funnel
• Last touch attribution — what converts people to become customers
• Velocity — how fast a piece of content, a channel, or a campaign moves
people through your funnel
• Full account analysis — how everything adds up in order to determine the
best path to sale
What Should You Track?
11. Looking at Offline and Online Touches
Measure and
integrate both online
and offline channels
Look at metrics per
program or per
account
By looking at the full
journey you can see
how everything
connects
12. Tracking Offline Touches
Tracking offline touches, like
direct mail, can be a challenge
What can you track?
Whether the receiver responded
to a CTA (URL, PURL, number)
Whether the receiver responded
to ADR outreach via phone or
email
14. The key to measurement is showing the true impact that
marketing has on pipeline and revenue.
Up-level marketing’s role in the organization by moving
away from vanity metrics to metrics that matter.
15. Why is This Important?
Speaking in terms of revenue helps you speak the language of the business
There are multiple touches that move a lead to become a customer, and you
want to give credit to all of those touches
In a B2B sales cycle, there are multiple decision makers—by only looking at
the opportunity contact you are missing a huge chunk of the story
Showing the ROI of your programs enables you to justify (and get more)
budget
16. Know how much revenue and pipeline your marketing programs sourced and
influenced.
What Should You Measure?
18. You Need to Look at Both Channel and Campaign
Marketing Channel:
Email
Content syndication
Physical events
Field events
Webinars
Advertising
Social
Direct Mail
Marketing Campaign
Specific email sent
Specific vendor and offer
Specific physical event
Specific field event
Specific webinar
Specific ad and offer
Specific social post
Specific direct mail campaign
19. • Be sure to segment your campaigns:
• Industry
• Sales tier
• Region
• Target Accounts
• Company Size
What Do You Want to Learn About Your Campaigns?
20. Early Stage: What Channels Bring People In?
What channels are best for driving
first-touch pipeline and revenue? Is
there a difference?
What channels are bringing in the
most leads, MQLs, Opps?
Do leads that originate from
different channels move through
the funnel at a different velocity?
21. Early Stage: What Campaigns Bring People In?
What programs—across all of your channels—are the best for sourcing
pipeline and revenue?
What programs should you double down on for next quarter and what
programs should you dump?
What is the ROI of each program? What you are spending vs. what you are
bringing in.
23. Mid-Stage: What Channels Accelerate Your Leads?
What channels move a lead from one stage to the next?
What channels are touching the most opps and the most deals?
24. What channels
influence pipeline and
revenue?
Is that different from
which channels source
pipeline and revenue?
Mid-Stage: What Channels Influence Pipeline and Revenue?
25. Mid-Stage: What campaigns Influence Pipeline and Revenue?
What programs influence
pipeline and revenue?
What programs should you
double down on for next
quarter and what programs
should you dump?
What is the ROI of each
program? What you are
spending vs. what you are
bringing in.
27. Last Touch: What Channels Convert Your Leads?
The last touch before a conversion
event
Look at what channels and
programs convert a lead to an opp
and to a customer
28. How Do You Put it All Together?
A deep dive into an account
29. Now it’s time to put it all together
to determine timing—what is the
optimal order for your content and
campaigns.
31. Make sure that you connect all leads and contacts to an account
Look at full journey—including all influencers in decision cycle
Look at trends in:
The order of what content is downloaded
What channels and campaigns were effective in what areas of the funnel (first-touch
vs. multi-touch)
How fast certain campaigns move leads down the funnel
How sales activity integrates into the overall buyer journey
Opportunity and Account Analysis
32. Opportunity Example: Marketing Activity
Examine full deal engagement by looking at all of the
marketing touches for each key contact:
Findings
11 total contacts
First touch:
• LinkedIn Ad
Middle touches:
• Email nurture
• Dreamforce booth
• Infographic
• ABM Guide
Last touches:
• Analyst Report: Attribution guide
• ABM Theory and Measurement
• Virtual Event
33. Opportunity Example: Sales Activity
Examine all sales activity in a deal to see how it
fits in with marketing activity:
Key Insights:
Email-centric focus for sales
Sales follow-up for each key marketing
activity
Email asks for meetings
Email asks for meetings at tradeshows
Emails re: what prospect is missing out on
Emails with case studies
Closing emails
34. Opportunity Analysis: Channel Engagement
What channels are engaging the most
contacts within an opportunity
Key Insights:
30% of engagements with external vendor
emails
26% of engagements with webinars
22% of engagements with internal emails
35. Opportunity Analysis: Decision Team
What are the titles of the people in an
account that engage the most:
Key Insights
64% of engagement with marketing was
with manager level employees
29% of engagement with marketing was
with VPs or Directors
No engagement with CXO roles
37. Track engagement per account and segment
Know what works for bringing people in and accelerating them through your
funnel
Know what works for different roles and titles, and know which roles and
titles typically engage with what content, channels, and programs
Know the velocity of different channel types and campaigns
Orchestrate the ideal buyer journey based on results
Constantly keep testing and optimizing!
Putting it All Together
38. Buyer Journey Example
Based on 6 month cohort:
First-Touch (TOFU):
1. Content Syndication: ABM Ebook
Multi-Touch (MOFU):
1. ADR Outreach
2. Website Visit: Definitive Guide to
Multi-Touch Attribution
3. Email Nurture
4. Internal Webinar
5. Email Call for Demo: $50 Amazon GC
Multi-Touch (BOFU):
1. Tradeshow: Sirius Decisions
2. Direct Mail: Cookie Campaign
3. Field Event: Dinner
4. Content: Invoca Case Study
Last Touch (BOFU)
1. ADR/AE Outreach
2. Content: Buyer Guide
39. • Set up metrics early — don’t wait. Set the foundation for success.
• Set programs up to be measurable from the beginning
• Create a culture of measurement across your team
• Move beyond vanity metrics (focus on pipeline/revenue)
• Communicate your metrics up
• Constantly keep testing and optimizing!
How to Start Today — Use Metrics for Planning
So just a quick word about what BrightFunnel before we dive in so you all know, BrightFunnel is a Revenue Intelligence platform. So what that means is that we help marketers with multi touch attribution, ABM analytics, web tracking and full funnel analysis. We are helping sales & marketing teams attribute success to all marketing programs and campaigns.
According to the 2017 DemandGen Report Benchmark Survey - 88% of responses cite the ability to measure and analyze marketing impact is a top priority this year.
I know that in my role - this is absolutely a top priority for me and one of the reasons I chose to work at BrightFunnel is that it helps solve this pain that marketers have. In my previous marketing role, I was constantly in different excel spreadsheets, scrambling at the end of the quarter to understand what worked and what didn’t. I didnt have the tools to properly analyze my campaigns and tie them to revenue.
But, this seems hard. How do we, as marketers, get to the bottom of the customer journey and understand which metrics we need to track?
Leveraging data to determine what marketing and sales touches work throughout your funnel enables you to better orchestrate your customer journey. You need to understand and orchestrate your customer journey to track pipeline and revenue tied to your campaigns. Because,
According to Forrester, Did you know that 76% of marketing professionals agree that their ability to track marketing ROI gives marketing more respect?
So at the end of the day - we need to focus on what is bringing in money to the business and that should be the main goal in mind.
To begin - you need to take these first three steps before you dive any further.
Establish goals and measurement estimates up front
Define what you want to measure by channel and by program
Align with all key stakeholders and get their input
Make sure that your team is properly trained and understands the importance of measurement - this is not a task for one person. Data cleanliness is another thing to focus on up front. It doesn’t need to be perfect, but you should have a program in place that focuses on ensuring that the data you have in your systems is clean and ready to be measured.
Today’s buyer journey is complex. Interactions take place on multiple channels, in multiple different ways. So because of that, marketers have a lot of their plate.
It is believed that each contact has between 7-13 interactions or touches before closing the deal. That is a lot of different programs and metrics to track along your customer journey.
And as we all know - Marketers do A LOT - all of you on the line give yourself a pat on the back. All the way from the top of the funnel lead generation, to nurturing and accelerating leads through your funnel, to keeping your leads and accounts engaged through closed won stages. Even looking at this slide of everything we are doing can look overwhelming and this is just scratching the surface. We are in charge of a lot more of the buyer journey funnel than ever before, holding bigger budgets than ever before, and influencing revenue more than ever before.
But, a lot of programs are based on guesswork. A lot of marketers do have a baseline of metrics to see what is working and what is not, but the holy grail of marketing is turning the buyer journey into a science - and this is where metrics come into play.
Understanding how and why campaigns are effective and using these insights to make smarter investments can make or break a company, yet marketers say that the ability to prove ROI is still the #1 challenge they face.
Let’s look at what you should begin to track to orchestrate this buyers journey:
First touch attribution—what brings people into your funnel
Multi touch attribution—look at every marketing touch to see what accelerates people through your funnel
Last touch attribution—what converts people to become customers
Velocity—how fast a piece of content, a channel, or a campaign moves people through your funnel
Full account analysis—how everything adds up in order to determine the best path to sale
DGR Benchmark Survey also asked for the first time this year which primary metric marketing departments were being measured on, and the top response was pipeline influenced (32%), followed by MQLs/SALs (27%), total leads/inquiries (15%) and accounts engaged (15%).Given these increased expectations around attributable pipeline influence, marketers are understandably increasing their focus on measurement and reporting.
There are different metrics at each stage of the funnel that you are looking at in your programs. For instance, a program meant to bring people into your top-of-funnel will have different metrics than programs meant to accelerate people to opportunities. It is important to understand what your program goals are and map those to your sales funnel in order to determine the best metrics to track.
Let’s start by looking at Early Stage Metrics - these are your top of funnel, lead gen programs and the purpose of these programs is to bring net new leads into your sales funnel. The top things to track in early stage metrics is what channels bring leads in and what programs bring leads in.
An important element to understand here, is not only do you need to understand what channels work, but you need to go a level deeper to understand what campaigns within those channels work best. For instance, you might find out that email marketing works best for moving a lead to become an MQL, but is there a pattern that emerges based on a particular email?
Before jumping into how to look at early stage metrics - it is important to set a benchmark of what exactly you are trying to track and learn from your campaigns. While overall metrics are great to look at, many organizations want to get more granular with their data.
Be sure to segment your campaigns by Industry, Sales tier, Region,Target accounts, Company Size - whichever is important to your goal.
First, look at what channels are bringing people into your funnel. I like to start out by seeing which channel is generating the most net-new leads. You will see a screenshot on each slide of what our BrightFunnel instance looks like, I use our platform to track all of these metrics. As you can see - in Q1 it looks like Webinars, Content Syndications and Email blasts brought in the top net new leads.
*make sure to go through each of the questions. You also might want to say that you should segment the data to determine what works best for different audiences in your database, because you might see different results. For instance, what type of channel brings folks in from ENT accounts vs. MM accounts, etc. I also think you need a screen shot to talk about sourced revenue--that is a critical metric. I would say even more important over leads. Understanding what channels and programs sourced the most pipeline and revenue. Bringing this stuff to actual dollar amounts.
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Mid Stage Metrics - transition
To look a level deeper, you should track how your channels are touching your leads and opps, as well as how your campaigns are touching your leads and opps. This will show you how engaged your open opportunities are with your content.
what channels and campaigns influence revenue and pipeline. That is a critical metric. We always want to track back to ROI and see how we are effecting the business.
Goals in the late stage funnel are more closely attributable to revenue, which means they tend to be more valuable for proving ROI to upper management. So without a strong early-stage funnel strategy, you won’t have a late-stage funnel. So it is important to set the foundation for the earlier stages, so you have later stage metrics to report on.
Which campaigns are converting your leads at the last touch? This is something we are all probably tracking today in some form or another, and it is an important metric to look at. We always want to know which campaign was the last thing a person interacted with before they became a customer. In the last touch model you can see which channels and programs are best for the late stages in your process.
It is time to put it all together to determine timing—and your timing should be aligned with the buyer journey. What is the optimal order for your contents and campaigns? How do you move the needle with your buyers faster by orchestrating the optimal buyer journey.
And you need to make sure you are thinking about timing as it relates to your sales funnel—what are you saying as someone moves from stage-to-stage?
One of the first things you need to do in order to put it all together is to look at current engagement within open opportunities and target accounts. You need a sample set to examine the data on what is working to move leads and accounts through your sales funnel.
First, you need to make sure that you connect all of your leads and contacts to an account, so you can have that full account view. Remember that B2B decision team? In order to understand when and how to orchestrate your engagement touches, you need to have a full picture of the account.
And then, start looking into trends. Is there a pattern that jumps out in the order of what content is downloaded in your target accounts? Are there trends in what channels and campaigns were most effective for bringing accounts in and accelerating them through the funnel? Do you have data on how fast certain campaigns and channels move leads down the funnel? And what about sales activity, how does that fit in?
Let’s take a look at a sample opportunity to see all of the marketing activity within one account and how we can start to map the buyer journey. In this account, there are 11 people that are part of the decision team, so you want to look at full engagement across each contact.
In our analysis, we are able to bucket engagement buy areas of the sales funnel to understand how this account was brought into our system and what accelerated that account through the buyer journey.
The other element to understanding the buyer journey is to layer sales activity on top of marketing engagement. What does the sales engagement on this account look like? Are they calling, sending emails, etc. And what do those emails say? Using the same opportunity example, we can see that in this account sales has had an email-centric approach—asking for meetings and emails with content.
Digging in even deeper into the types of engagement and what has been working for this opportunity, we can see that 30% of engagement in this account has been with external vendor email programs, 26% of engagement with webinars, and 22% of engagement with house emails. This can help us move beyond individual programs to understanding what channels your accounts are engaging with the most. Is there a trend amongst named accounts in different geographic territories? Is there a trend amongst different company sizes?
Let’s also take a look at the decision team for this particular opportunity. Who are you engaging with the most? What is moving the needle within your decision team? In this account we can see that most of our engagements are with manager level employees, followed by VPs and Directors. There is no engagement with a CXO role. This could be because there isn’t one associated with this decision or you haven’t created any content or run any programs that have gotten the attention of the CXO.
After all of this account-analysis we have a good understanding of what programs have moved the needle, where they fall in the buyer journey, how sales activity gets layered in, what channels have received the most engagement, and what does the decision team look like.
The next step is to start looking at the velocity of different channels—how long does it take for a lead to move from stage to stage when sourced or influenced by a specific channel, this helps determine timing as you orchestrate the buyer journey.
For instance, I know that if I run a direct mail program, it takes 18 days for that lead to convert to an opportunity and if a lead comes in through the website, I know that it takes 31 days for that lead to turn into an opportunity. Given this knowledge on historical velocity, I can backfill what programs I need to move people from stage to stage faster. I also know from a planning perspective when leads from specific channels will convert.
So how do you put it all together?
Now let’s take everything we learned and put together a sample buyer journey. This was based on 6 months of data. When we analyzed our current programs, opps, and accounts, we came up with this as a sample buyer journey.
We know that high quality leads have come in through a content syndication program. After that program, we have created a series of engagements that have been successful in moving people to additional lead stages. ADR outreach, followed by driving to the website, adding them to email nurture, inviting them to a webinar, and then accelerating them to opp by giving a $50 amazing GC for a demo.
Once they have engaged with that demo, we will start making our outreach personalized and high touch by inviting them to visit us at a tradeshow, sending them a direct mail campaign, inviting them to a dinner, and sending them a late-stage content asset.
And finally, we have an AE or ADR engage personally and start sending them content that helps them build the business case for our product.
Proving ROI is a top challenge for B2B marketers. The problem isn’t access to data—we have more data than ever before. The issue is creating campaigns with measurement built in. When your marketing efforts align specific goals with quantifiable metrics, you can demonstrate exactly how marketing contributes to movement through the funnel all the way through conversion.
So, what can you do today to get started?
Set up metrics early - don’t wait. Set foundation for success
Set programs up to be measurable from the beginning
Create a culture of measurement across your team
Move beyond vanity metrics (focus on pipeline/revenue)
Communicate your metrics up
Constantly keep testing and optimizing
Using all of the metrics discussed will help you understand what you should say, and when you should say it.
Thanks so much for tuning in today! I hope you all took away some great insights on which campaign metrics really do matter --- Q&A