It’s the data stupid! Segmentation of your database, and the
quality of the data therein, is the most important factor in determining the
outcome of marketing campaigns. I read two items this week that reminded me of
this important concept. First I read an ancient article on the 50 year old
practice of RFM segmentation. No, that is not “Read The…Manual”, it is Recency,
Frequency, and Monetary segmentation, something the direct mail business has
practiced successfully for 50 years. The parallels to our B2B marketing
automation supported lead nurturing world are amazing. We tend to consider
recency and frequency of prospect interaction in determining a lead score for
instance, and use that lead score in segmentation (to which campaign should I
add or delete them?).
The second document I read was Ian Michiel’s document on
Lead Lifecycle Management published in July 2009. In it Ian explains Aberdeen’s
findings that best in class companies who improve their lead management (and
thereby get better business results) are also substantially better at
segmenting and targeting and have formal lead nurturing programs. The important thing to remember about the
data in your segmented list is that it is the first in a chain of variables
that affect your campaign performance, and being first it can have a huge
ripple effect on all the other variables (“Does the flap of a butterfly’s
wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?”).
If you are serious about improving the effectiveness of your outbound lead nurturing campaigns you are best served by improving the variables starting at the left and working to the right! Attempting to dial in all 6 variables at the same time is not going to get you to the best campaign results fastest. But I digress!
What’s wrong with ‘spray and pray’ marketing campaigns?
Back in the old days, prior to email, direct mail was the primary
medium for direct communications. And if you didn’t segment you could waste a
ton of budget on printing and postage! These days the direct medium of choice
is usually email which is practically free. So what’s wrong with spraying and
praying? It doesn’t really cost us anything more once the campaign is set up, does
it? It does!
- It can be very difficult to determine what messages are resonating and what offers are successful if you send them to broad audiences, mixing industry verticals, titles, geographies, etc. ie you limit your ability to measure effectiveness and improve results by spraying broadly.
- After you send 2 or 3 irrelevant messages to an individual you effectively inoculate them; your chances of getting through to them with the right message later on are diminished. Even if they don’t unsubscribe, chances are good that you will be diverted to their junk folder in the future. You only get one chance at a first impression…
- If you spray, then the chances are that your message and offer will be watered down to the most common denominator. You will likely be sending some “me, me, me, it’s all about me” style documents and offers. Nurturing emails that work best are in fact the “you, you, you, it’s all about what you need” type, as mentioned in Brian Carroll’s good blog post recently. And you can really only make these offers effectively if you have segmented narrowly!
By not segmenting do I undermine my marketing metrics?
If you want to convince your boss that the offers and email
copy you are creating are brilliant, and you are getting much better open rates
and clicks than the industry average,
then by all means mix in current customers, competitors, and employees with your new prospects on that
product 101 emailing! All of these people are great for bumping up open rates! Good luck improving that campaign.
Can poor data hygiene affect my marketing metrics?
Of course! Garbage in Garbage out (GIGO). What if 20% of
your list are duplicates, 20% are unsubscribed but fortunately blocked by your
email provider, 45% are public domains,
5% have typos in the domain name and so will bounce, 1% have
parenthetical sales notes in the first name that you used to personalize the
email, and 15% got the default signature and contact info in their email of
some guy in service because he is erroneously
assigned as the lead owner. Good luck improving that campaign.
The most important contributor to effective campaigns is the
data you begin with, so for heaven’s sake allow only clean data in, keep it clean, and segment it well!
-Kevin
The important thing to remember about the data in your segmented list is that it is the first in a chain of variables that affect your campaign performance, and being first it can have a huge ripple effect on all the other variables.
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The important thing to remember about the data in your segmented list is that it is the first in a chain of variables that affect your campaign performance, and being first it can have a huge ripple effect on all the other variables.
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