Grieben vs Email List Attrition

Here is my newest post for more great content check out Eloqua's Topliners Community and The Quarry Idea Exchange.

In a world transitioning to an opt-in email model, having a valid email address – and permission to use it – is more important than ever. While Sales and Marketing is out there gathering new leads, let’s discuss how your operations team can better shepherd the existing email flock and reengage the contacts that wandered off.

In the reporting world, these lost souls fill out ranks of your email bounce and unsubscribe metrics, but they might not be lost forever. So grab your staff and wooly poncho and let’s head off into the hills and track down our lost list members before someone else captures them.

Let’s start by identifying the different types of missing persons:

Bounces are when you have a failure in technology or data, and unsubscribes are a failure in your relationships. The outcome of each is the same: your message didn’t make it to the recipient. The reasons for delivery failure, however, could be very different. How can you react to this missed connection? Let’s take a look by type, starting with bounces.

Soft Bounce
A soft bounce happens when your email is current, but the message is undeliverable nonetheless. Some reasons could include:
• It’s a general or shared inbox that has high volume and has reached its limit.
• The recipient is on vacation, hasn’t checked their email in quite some time and their inbox has reached its limit.
• The person is no longer employed at the company you’re targeting and the email hasn’t been deactivated yet (worst-case scenario).

What to Do When It Happens
Assume the best. Assume the person is on vacation and hasn’t checked his or her email yet. Retry your failed message after a week to allow the recipient time to clear the backlog. If it bounces again, or if your message is of an urgent nature, try reaching out to the individual with a phone call or through social channels (if you have his or her Twitter/Facebook information) to verify the individual’s information so that communications can resume.

Hard Bounce
This bounce is more serious because the info you have is flat out incorrect. If this is a new contact it could be a data entry error, but if this is a long-time prospect or contact, it could be something else. Some reasons could include:
• Your contact changed organizations.
• The company changed the format of their email addresses.
• The entire domain isn’t active.

Regardless of the reason, this is a serious data quality issue for you. If the contact is a champion for your organization, or a legal contact who’s no longer employed, you need to find a new focus for your relationships at that organization. If email formats or domains have changed, it will affect all the email addresses you have for the entire organization.

What to Do When It Happens
Notify sales or customer service and get the contact on the phone, just get someone pounding the pavement verifying data to find out why the technology isn’t working so you can fix the problem. It’s most likely not a huge issue, but if it happens during late sales cycles negotiations, it could be disastrous if not remedied quickly.

Now for unsubscribes, when the relationship fails.
While the previous two reasons undeliverable messages were technology-based, we’re entering into no-man’s-land. These last two reasons are more about relationship building and less about delivering your messaging because these contacts took action to ask you to leave them alone. This class of list loss is important because while some people simply become unengaged, they can be a canary in the mineshaft warning you about how the rest of your list feels about your communications. Tread lightly, because these individuals were upset enough to take action and you need their help to figure out why so you can win them back, or at least not lose more list members.

List-Unsubscribe
The lesser of the two evils, the list-unsubscribe means that your contact hasn’t selected to disengage completely, but is sick and tired of a certain type of conversation. They have used your subscription management tool to tell you that a certain message is no longer of interest. No one likes to be told to get lost, but this is a chance for your service organization to inject a little awesome into your contact’s life.

What to Do When It Happens
The first and easiest thing to start is to include a feedback option for your contacts within the unsubscribe process. Use of a survey or form to collect data about your reasons for loss will give you measurable and actionable data to analyze regarding why your contacts are abandoning you. Engagement will likely be low, but you will capture some of the most passionate responses this way, giving you much to think about when planning future communications.

You should also consider having a sales or customer service contact the individual. Nothing makes people feel special like receiving a personalized touch to make sure they haven’t been offended. You can also collect feedback on your campaigns to identify perception trends about communication frequency, tone and relevance to help you better target future messages to your remaining list members. Best case scenario, you might get them re-subscribed.

Global-Unsubscribe
We now reach the worst case scenario for list attrition, the global-unsubscribe. Your contact not only doesn’t want to get your event invites, they don’t want to hear from you at all, ever, seriously this guy hates you. Something happened between you and this contact that was so severe they asked to never be emailed again. This is where most organizations leave it, but like the list-unsubscribe, there is valuable customer service info to be gleaned here.

What to Do When It Happens
A feedback loop is good to include again, but I recommend you have sales or customer service contact the individual, and make sure to be extra humble! You already know you have upset him or her, and you want to know how to make it right or make sure you never do it again to anyone else. This is the B2B equivalent of asking an ex-significant other why you got dumped. It will probably be awkward for both of you, so be prepared for the possibility of them saying they just aren’t that into you. With any luck they will be open to the conversation because this is their chance to help you become a better marketer. At least it shows you cared enough to ask.

Armed with some humble pie and the desire to make things right, you can win back some lost lists and at the same time collect valuable feedback to improve your future activities. Recover some of your lost flock and you’ll become an email hero to your contacts and coworkers.

What strategies have you implemented for maintaining the health of your database?

Grieben vs Bad Event Experiences

Here is a my Latest post originally in Eloqua's Topliners Community How Syngenta used QR codes to improve event management.

Tradeshows, traffic and the battle of objectives.


Marketers are continually looking for new ways to attract attention and generate engagement in their campaigns. This past year, integrating QR codes into marketing assets has been a growing trend, as is the case with all innovative tools. However, to be effective, you need to know when and how to use them. In my last post (Campaigns….2D Code, or Not 2D Code, That Is the QR Question…) I offered some guidance that could be helpful if you are considering a QR code in your next campaign. Today, I want to share a situation where employing a QR code was the right choice – and not for the reasons you might expect.

The Background

Syngenta Canada is a world-leading crop protection product manufacturer, one that saw a problem with their event campaigns. Specifically Syngenta had trouble with the user experience and back-end processes of their onsite event data collection. Their customers are busy farmers, which makes it difficult to find time to collect data for segmentation, especially in a frantic tradeshow environment.

The question was: How do you drive traffic to your booth AND eliminate clerical duties (enabling your staff to engage in meaningful conversations) AND get the farmer to provide relevant information all at the same time? The high traffic and excitement of a live event simply do not always afford the accomplishment of all these goals.

The Solution

To resolve this battle of objectives, our team at Quarry took a two-pronged approach. Rather than try to accomplish everything on the day of the event, the objectives were split so as to not overwhelm attendees when their time and attention is most scarce. This was done by striving to complete the traffic generation and data collection activities BEFORE the tradeshow date, and focusing onsite activities on streamlining tracking and encouraging conversations with sales.

Here’s how this was accomplished using a blend of email, web form and QR code strategies.


Traffic Generation – Using Syngenta’s existing marketing automation platform, an email was sent to the farmers who were likely to attend the event. This email informed farmers that Syngenta would have a presence at the event, and offered visitors a free gift just for stopping by.

Data Collection – To receive this special gift, however, farmers would need to fill out an online form linked from the email. Attendees provided the information normally collected onsite in paper form. This ensured Syngenta got the information they needed, and in return, the farmer received a QR code to be presented at the booth to collect their gift.

Enable Conversations – The QR code that farmers received had to be presented at the event, and once scanned, the visitor was tracked as attending the booth. With tracking out of the way, representatives from Syngenta were free to engage the attendee, with no break in conversation and with no follow-up expense on data entry.

The Result

By implementing this process, a much smoother event experience for both vendor and attendee was achieved. The normal struggle of trying to entice booth visitors while simultaneously collecting marketing and sales information was eliminated, resulting in conversations rather than clerical work. By front loading their traffic generation and data collection Syngenta had a steady flow of visitors come looking for them on event day – instead of having to visitors to stop. With one scan, all the normal booth interactions were completed, allowing employees to get down to the business of consulting.

It’s an experience that was enabled by the use of a QR code that in the past would have been much more time consuming and labor intensive. When considering implementing a QR code in your campaigns, just remember the golden rule: “A QR code should make your life, your prospect’s life or both, easier.”

Do you have any success stories involving the unconventional use of QR codes, or have a campaign you think could be enhanced by using one? If so, I would love to discuss your experience. Feel free to share below, or contact me at mgriebenow@quarry.com

Grieben vs QR Code use

Here is a my Latest post originally in Eloqua's Topliners Community Campaigns….2D Code, or Not 2D Code, That Is the QR Question…

QR codes (aka 2D Barcodes) aren’t new, and yet they remain shrouded in uncertainty. Most marketers understand the theory behind QR code technology, but many are unsure of how exactly it works, or when to use it – and why. This uncertainty raises questions around whether or not a QR campaign is really worth its risk.

With no definitive answer to the use/don’t use question, and with fail blog style sites like WTF QR CODES.com (http://wtfqrcodes.com/) immortalizing a QR campaign Hall of Shame, it’s no wonder marketers often shy away from QR technology.

To try and clear the waters, I’ve done a quick scan (pun intended) of available data and combined them with experience gained from relevant campaigns we’ve managed. What follows is a Never/Maybe/Always guide, a tool you can look to (or click here to download) when deciding whether QR code integration is a do or don’t for your next campaign.

When it’s “2Dumb” to use a 2D/QR code

• Your market has low smartphone adoption rates
• Most scanning software is for mobile phones, so if your market doesn’t use them, they won’t be scanning.
• Your QR code will be in areas with questionable data service or lighting conditions
• Scans rely on clear images; motion and lighting can affect scan quality.
• Internet access is required. No coverage means no scan.
• You haven’t optimized your landing pages for mobile
• If your assets are hard to read on the viewing device being used, then they won’t be read.

When it’s “Questionable & Risky” to use a 2D/QR code

• Your QR code resolves on a URL
• A scan can be as much work – or more – than typing in a URL, especially if your audience needs to download software.
• Your offer isn’t AWESOME
• Scanning takes effort. If your page appears low-value, you’re actually doing more harm than good.

When it’s “Quite Right” to use a 2D/QR code

• You’re 100% sure your audience has QR code scanners
• QR codes are widely used in certain markets and can help engage with that audience.
• Your process, and by extension your service, is improved
• If the code you provide helps you reference information or streamline an administrative task that improves your service with no additional action from the recipient, code away.

For more resources to help get you started on your journey to successful QR code use, I recommend checking out Hubspot’s QRchive (http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/Default.aspx?Tag=qr%20codes). It houses some excellent tools to help you evaluate the specifics of your campaign.

Deciphering the code for QR success comes down to one obvious question: “Is this experience as good as or better than what I already provide for my prospect?” If the answer is “no,” or even “maybe,” you should make sure you’ve considered and fully understand the risk of an under performing campaign. After all, no one wants to see their work end up on WTF QR CODES, complete with the soul-crushing #fail hash tag.

If, after weighing the risk and reward, you still think QR codes could help in managing your campaigns, then check out my next post, where I will outline how our team utilized QR codes to help drive booth traffic for a client’s tradeshow.

Link to next post!

Grieben vs The Impact of Dirty Data

Here is a my Latest post originally in Quarry's Idea Exchange The Impact of Dirty Data (And What One Marketer Did About It)

Your marketing department runs on data. It’s like fuel for your demand generation engine. And the cleaner your fuel is, the more efficient your engine runs. Dirty data destroys your engine’s efficiency, reducing the impact of your campaigns—or in the worst cases, causes harm. Dirty data causes poor results when segmenting databases, and cripples support for dynamic content.

According to Judith Kincaid, author of Customer Relationship Management: Getting It Right!, contact data deteriorates at a rate of up to 30% per year. The longer incorrect records remain in your database, the more expensive it is to deal with them. (Consider the 1-10-100 rule: where Sirius Decisions says it takes $1 to verify a record as it is entered in the database, $10 to cleanse and de-dupe it, and $100 if nothing is done, as the ramifications of mistakes are felt over and over again by sales & marketing.)

How dirty are marketers’ databases? Well, Sirius Decisions research suggests 10 to 25 percent of B2B marketing databases contain critical errors (that’s 1 in 4!). These errors range from as simple as incorrect demographic data to vital as inaccurate information about current buying cycle status. Sending to an incorrect address is embarrassing and expensive, but having the incorrect name, marital status or (heaven forbid) accurate record of life or death could be relationship-destroying.

The road to repairing and maintaining your data is not easy, but ask a marketer currently walking that road and they will tell you it’s well worth the effort. Those who get it right are marketers who have shifted focus from one-off projects and have established policies and processes that maintain the quality of your data over time.

We recently worked with one such marketing team, and helped them create a ‘Contact Washing Machine’. For those who don’t know, this is an automated data cleanliness program that standardizes and normalizes data within the company’s marketing automation platform.

The problem:
The client realized non-standard free text fields and blanks had made it incredibly difficult to segment or prioritize their Prospect and Lead database. They needed a solution that could standardize field values to increase the clarity of reporting and ease of segmentation for all the users of their database.

The process:
1. Assess:
a. Identify all fields commonly used for segmentation and reporting.
b. Standardize a list of values that data in each field should adhere to.

2. Automate:
a. Use tools like Excel or GoogleRefine to segment non-standardized data to identify common incorrect values.
b. Create Rules-based program logic to find and replace incorrect values with standard values.

3. Adjust:
a. For non explicit matches, add exception rules to catch all non-blank values.
b. Program and test these rules on test data for QA purposes.

4. Audit:
a. Review program results and repeat steps 1-2 until all data is standardized.
b. Perform quarterly and yearly reviews. Asses if existing normalizations are still relevant or require updating.

The results:
Below is a snapshot of the impact the data cleanliness program had on the standardization of the client’s data points.

It also had the added benefit of making it much simpler for the sales team to calculate a lead score. Based on these normalized values they were then also able to more accurately show the quality of the leads they handed to sales.

With results like these, it’s easy to see the value of implementing a data quality program with its boosts in efficiency, improved campaign results and improved marketer morale.

How clean is your data? Could your organization benefit from a similar program?

Grieben vs Outbound Marketing

If you are an online marketer like me you hear a lot about metrics....every day....all day. I might not have been born an ops guy but thats where my life has taken me and hearing numbers tossed around is a regular occurrence in my day. Here is a list of the ones I hear more frequently.

• Email List Size 
• New Email List Subscribers 
• Unsubscribes 
• Bounce Rate 
• Open Rate 
• Click Rate 
• Conversion Rate 

The most notable thing about these metrics is they are all stimulus and response measures. How many can/cant I stimulate? (Total list size, new list members, conversions, unsubscribes) and what was their response to this stimulation(Opens/Bounces/Clicks).

This is an old media approach to outgoing communications, the same methods to evaluate TV/Newspaper/Magazine/Billboard ect. This type of thinking is great for evaluating individual vehicles within a channel, which magazine you want to choose for example. These metrics prove effective because you can measure the engagement of your potential audience based on behavioral data.

The value of such measures erodes however when improving the metric becomes your focus instead a tool to measure the success of the activity its related to. Its a subtle difference in peoples motivations that should be noted. It’s the distinction between quantity and quality, between attempts and wins.

There is one main difference between using these types of metrics on the above channels and using them in your outbound activities. The difference is implied consent. When you turn on your tv, buys a magazine, turn on the radio you have the expectation that in exchange for this content you will be exposed to adds. That expectation makes the exposure acceptable. Its acceptable because if you ever want the exposure to stop your inaction prevents it from continuing.

Marketers today collect names from a wide variety of sources and send communications over and over again until that name screams stop. If you have ever looked into the bounce-back/auto reply inbox for your company you will know those screams are loud.

Think about it as a user, they want to view your video/article/download and that action is worth the exchange of their email address. They think sure let you send me this recording and provide you with a place to send it. What they didn't intend is to sign up for unending steam of sales pitches. I don't know about you but the last thing I want to do is give the annoying guy next to me on the bus some money(Well unless he will shut up). Completing a call to action however usually only makes the volume of communication increase. Marketers have gotten so good at ignoring users, that those same users do everything in their power to stop the tsunami of content. Something as grassroots a creating a spam only account to have a just address to give out for junk email all the way up to lobbying for legislative protection. Its an endless game of cat and mouse.

CANSPAM and COPL are examples of this legislation, Do-Not-Call and Do-Not-Track is the consumers way of fighting back. For a fantastic summary of the laws check out Eloqua's Topliners Community Post.

If you don't want to hop over there I will summarize it for you with an age old saying, “Speak when Spoken to and not before”. Your Brand should be seen and not heard until sent for. This legislation is worded so that regardless of how you communicate, even methods that don't exist yet, will require prior consent. I don't know about you but a law forcing you to leave your prospects alone is a pretty clear message. If a girl gets a restraining order, stop asking her out.

There are of course exemptions in this legislation, like all legislation, but that's not the point. Seth Godin says, “If I think its broke, its broken even if its not.” Even though it might not be illegal, your list might think it is. The buyer/seller relationship is fragile and relies on trust so why risk being perceived as a spammer. Play it safe, when in doubt don't send.

Why not switch you efforts from outbound batch and blasts to an inbound strategy. I compare it to fishing, some people spend hours picking the perfect bait to attract exactly the right fish, and others toss a stick of dynamite over the side. You might have to wait for that perfect nibble, but you wont have to wade through a sea of fish carcasses either. Its much safer, authentic and less stressful for you and your prospects to position yourself as a subject matter expert. Offer them your expertise, your knowledge, make it available in online communities, in blog posts, create how to articles, videos, share slide presentations. Build content that shows what you know and leave your contact info. People will see your work, start nibbling and come find you when they are hungry.

If you put your effort into making yourself both attractive and easily found instead of actively ignored you will have your sales force answering real inquiries rather than begging for a close. Your Customers will be happier because you aren't acting like a needy brat, and your employees will be happier because no-one likes to be hung up on and hated.

Grieben vs The Purple Cow

Generally speaking, it takes a lot to shock me...well not in a horror movie sense, I’ll break down like a toddler at a scary movie, but i mean in an every day sense. Very little surprises me in my everyday life.

A recent example would be a campaign run by VLG, a firm out of Houston that runs under the username @wefightboredom on twitter. this campaign representing a fictional hotel was itself an experiential case study advertising their services. Their campaign wasn't anything technically over complicated, it was just well executed and a perfect example of Seth Godin’s legendary purple cow.

What they sent me pictured here, was a non de-script brown envelope containing what appeared to be a hotel room card key and a bar napkin with (what appeared to be) a hand written personalized url, or PURL. Once visited, there was a simple but effective interactive flash page guiding you through a virtual hotel and menu selection.

The whole exchange was really nothing special in its outcome, little more than an opt in form and simple food and beverage survey. What it did do was go about collecting the data in a unique way.

The mailer itself was obvious and mysterious. It told me very plainly that a hotel wanted to get a hold of me. I had never heard of the hotel so i knew it was promotional kit, but it gave no hint to what promotion was, just a CTA asking that i visit their personalized website just for me. They had peaked my curiosity with a bar napkin. Maybe I’m a bit of a nerd but that in and of itself got me excited.

Once on the site i knew almost instantly that this wasn't a real hotel chain, I haven't had a long career yet, I have only had 4 business trips that involved hotel stays and yet I still receive at least 3 promotional mailers from various hotel chains each week. This mailer wreaked of batch and blast, but with a sophistication that surpassed anything I had seen in any communications from a run of the mill hotel chain.

After completing the self guided survey I learned that VLG was trying to promote their services and within 10 mins of completing the survey I had received a call from a representative making following up. Being as junior as I am at the moment the call was for not, but this entire interaction had two outcomes that I think should mark it as a success.

First, they blew my mind, only two other campaigns ive interacted with have had the same affect. First was Marketo’s “You Dont Know Jack” trivia game self assesment. This campaign was borrowed an existing trivia brand repurposed to collect qualification criteria. It was brilliant because well it was fun and i was more than willing to fork over valuable information that most marketers have to beg and plead for.

The second was Eloqua’s Drake campaign, gets an unfair advantage because I’m a user but i think has some real value. This campaign did a number of things it created controversy by starting by flatly denouncing a a commonly held belief that brand avatars are pointless endeavors and the company put its money where its mouth was by making numerous challenging statements to that fact. This peaked my interest as a marketer, i wanted to see how the experiment would turn out. It engaged me and held my interest and created a way for me to interact with their brand in a way that wasn't always possible beforehand. It also second was that it created a way for them to maintain relationships with users that was normally only possible on a 1-1 basis with live employees. while relationships with real employees is a very valuable thing, its value that is list as turnover moves that headcount elsewhere. the Drake campaign created the opportunity for an ever-present relationship, a conversation with an avatar that would never leave the company.

Wow that started a tangent there, So to get back on track, like these two campaigns, the VLG campaign had blown my mind and forever impressed me, but secondly and possibly more importantly it got me talking. While these other two campaigns engaged me as an individual even to the point of passing along through social media, this campaign had me up and walking the office, passing around my tangible evidence, telling the story of my interaction and basically drooling on my office floor trying to share my experience with any other marketer i could find. Short of asking for a promotion so i could fill out a purchase order their simple activity of setting up a landing page and mailing me a napkin had derailed me and gotten me to interrupt as many people as i could find.

I know this post has been a bit of a love fest but in a world tripping over itself to provide analysis of ROI and revenue attribution sometimes the art of marketing gets lost and these examples from VLG, Marketo and Eloqua are proof that while on the backend the science is important, giving me something awe inspiring will not only the person in your database and unbelievably positive brand experience, it will broaden your audience in in a way limited only by the number of people within earshot.

Grieben vs Data Management Accountability via Jigsaw Data Fusion

So this is a followup to my previous post about the Jigsaw acquisition by Salesforce. I commented on some potential reasoning behind the merger and potential PR pitfalls that could result. The strategy is now self evident based on the resulting products being offered, but I think the potential for bad PR still remains. That being said what they have come up with is some pretty exciting stuff, at least from this data coordinators perspective.

Pop over to their site to get the overview, Jigsaw Data Management There are 4 products so far, Jigsaw Team,Jigsaw Lists, Jigsaw Unlimited, and Data Fusion. The products are pretty self explanatory, Team gives you a multi-user account to view data, lists is easy list generation for marketing and telesales, and unlimited is well, unlimited.

The most exciting product from my standpoint however looks to be Data Fusion this is the tool that i skeptical guessed was coming in my previous post, it compares your corporate CRM data to the cloud sourced database held within jigsaw and gives you an overview of potential incorrect and out of date data.

I find this to be a pretty exciting tool from a data management perspective. In many organizations data management is seen as a double edged sword. Data users assume poor data quality and blame it on IT for poor cleansing, and operations blames users for poor cleansing for entry. This tool allows both sides of this discussion to stop pointing fingers and work together to clean the database.

Rather than assuming data is of poor quality, this tool references a third party to identify potential problems within your CRM. Using this tool not only can data that is verified as incorrect be identified and removed, but potential problem data can be easily added to campaigns for verification and re-engagement.

Part of the problem with data management is accountability, who is responsible? weather on the operations or user side of the discussion what to do with potential problem data is a decision has system wide implications. depending on how many stakeholders there are, cleansing can be an impossible task and the resources required to identify let alone act on data management initiatives can be staggering.

This tool can potentially become a lighting rod, rallying all sides of the debate changing the issue from, "how do we identify the dirty data?", to "here is the dirty data, how can we fix it."Its the Rosetta stone both sides have been searching for because fixing an identified problem is much easier then agreeing on what problem should be solved.

So far there is only one case study available, but I'm excited to see how this tool develops and what results customers are able to realize as a result of it. If you have any real world examples of how this or other data tools have impacted your organization from a data quality or user philosophy standpoint, I would love to hear from you.