Yesterday I attended Good to Great: A Marketing Virtual Event which was sponsored by the company Marketo. I really wasn’t sure what to expect, it was the first time I was going to attend a “virtual” conference, and I didn’t know how much I would actually get out of it.
I think that the most information I received was actually in the keynote address which was presented by Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, Lori Wizdo, and Marketo’s CMO, Sanjay Dholakia.
The key points they made were the following:
- Buyers are in Control
- Time and Resources are Tighter
- There are A LOT of Marketing Channels
So, what does this mean? To start, buyers now control the access to information, they can go online and do research themselves. Studies show that they engage in at least 3-5 channels before they decide to make a purchasing system. That means, as marketers, we need to be in all the channels they are going to, providing them the information they are looking for, so when the time comes for them to purchase, we are who they are thinking about, and want to purchase. The challenge is how do we do that when our marketing budgets are tighter? Most companies budgets are around 2% of their revenue. We need to be efficient and effective in what we put out there. We need to spend about 22% of our total marketing budget on Lead Origination and Lead Nurturing.
Meeting leads where they are, and providing them the information they are looking for.
We need to stop doing things that aren’t showing a return on revenue, and start doing things that are. We need to make sure we are managing lead to revenue, so we can show that what we are doing is effective. But what is most effective? Studies have show that Email Marketing, Company Sponsored In-Person Events, Content Marketing and Webinars top the list as the most effective ways to nurture leads, based on the feedback from all respondents, and the respondents that were top performers in generating revenue. As you can see by looking at this chart, after those 4 tactics, most of the others rank pretty much at the same level, so a lot of it will most likely have to do with what your company does on where you are most effective.
All of these changes have generated a new buying funnel, where marketing truly plays a part in the Awareness, Interest and Consideration of buyers. We need to provide them the appropriate content to help them make an informed decision, and lead them to a sale.
Overall these are the key points that Lori and Sanjay shared with us yesterday.
If you’re curious and want to find out more you can view their full presentation on Slideshare here. I’ll be sharing more from this conference in the coming days.
Let me know if you have any questions or thoughts on where Marketing is heading.
