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It’s that time of year! The holidays are finally over and the joys of housekeeping and number crunching are upon us. How did your business end up in 2011? Above or below your expectations?

For us marketing folks, January is typically the time we square away to audit our marketing efforts from the previous year in preparation for future strategies. And the one big question that should be on everyone’s mind is, how much did those leads really cost me? 

The good news is, the numbers should be pretty painless to figure out. With all the wonderful analytic and marketing intelligence provided by companies such as Google, Coremetrics, Optify, Marketo, Raven, etc, there’s no shortage of data to analyze and come up with that magic number that tells you, “was this effort really worth it?” And with the rise of online and social media marketing in the past few years, the cost to acquire good leads has reduced dramatically to the point that any company, regardless of size or budget, can easily compete in the digital marketplace.

So what’s your magic number? In order to determine this, you need to define what you consider a lead to be. Is it someone who fills out a form on your website? Is it someone who clicks on an email campaign? How do you know when your leads are qualified, unqualified, hot or cold? The answer to these questions will differ for every business, but should be defined before calculating the cost of lead acquisition. Once you’ve figured out how you define a lead, you’ll want to find out the number of total leads you acquired and break them down by marketing channel activity.

Next, you’ll want to determine the cost of your marketing channel activities. In the world of online marketing, activities will generally fall into one of 5 campaign categories: Email, Social, SEO, Paid Search or Events/Webinars. The cost of activities for each channel will generally be a combination of time plus resources.

Lastly, to determine the average cost to acquire a lead, you’ll want to divide the total cost of marketing channel activities by the total number of leads acquired from that channel. For those visual folks out there, the equation looks similar to this:

Average cost to acquire lead = Cost of activity time + resources / total leads acquired

Calculate that and tada! That is your magic number (aka the average cost of lead acquisition for that channel). If you want to know the cost of lead acquisition for all channels combined or your marketing department in general, add the total cost for each channel and divide by the total number of leads you received.

Knowing how much value you derrived from your marketing efforts is paramount in developing your marketing plan. It will enable you to determine which activities generate the highest return on your effort (and help you boost the bottom line). Sure it takes some time to figure out, but hey.. they don’t call it crunching because it’s easy!

For the past 3 years, social media has been all the rage in online marketing. It’s easy to see why…the marketing channel opportunities and results that social media provides are cost-effective, traceable and immediate. While I’m undoubtedly a believer in utilizing social as a marketing strategy, I can’t help but wonder… What the hell happened to email?

I was recently contracted as the Social Media Marketing Manager for a celebrity news startup to handle their social presence and blog network. I have a nice budget to build and maintain their Facebook, Twitter, Google+, social Q&A, and bookmarking networks and have so far succeeded. My next hurdle (that to be perfectly honest) I can’t quite jump yet, is to grow them. The communities are there and no one- except us- is talking. 

Why? Hmmm… well it’s certainly no surprise that our brand is not a household name. No one who wasn’t told to would even think to type in our company name to find us. Aside from the awesome, keyword-rich and searchable social content we share daily, we aren’t giving people the opportunity to drop in and meet us. So what can we do to promote our fancy new social networks?

This is where I think email is increasingly being overlooked. And I have a sneaky feeling by more people than my client.  For the past few years we’ve all been focusing more on creating online communities and dropping links rather than the methods we use to drive people to them. And I think email is the most effective strategy to use to accomplish this. Why do we have a signup form on our website if we aren’t going to use it?

I understand that after years of telesales, spam email and black hat tactics,  we’ve had a need for permission-based marketing. And social media, like a consumer’s knight in shining armor, has come to fill it. But why neglect a strategy that’s been so effective in driving results just because consumers don’t like to be bothered? That’s what the opt-out button is for, isn’t it?

It’s no surprise that SaaS and cloud computing solutions are increasing in popularity. From reduced costs in hosting and infrastructure to increased mobility and accessibility, the benefits are profound. Need proof? A recent study by IDC estimates that spending on cloud services will expand at a compound annual growth rate of 27.6%, from $21.5 billion in 2010 to $72.9 billion in 2015. From Google to Salesforce to Amazon to Microsoft… the cloud is getting fuller and heavier.

While the popularity and acceptance of cloud computing has certainly taken off, new questions are being asked regarding the security of third-party data hosting.  Has the centralization of IT into a few cloud computing platforms made it easier for the “bad guys” to focus their efforts? Is valuable information from your marketing department, such as customer preferences, past orders and mailing lists, at an increased risk for cyber threat?

Despite this concern, an alarming study by the Ponemon Institute, which surveyed over 900 IT executives across the world, found that about half of worldwide IT organizations said that no one in their organization evaluates cloud computing providers for security. Worse yet, another half said they were pretty sure that no one in their organizations knew about every cloud computing service that end users in their company were storing data on.

You don’t have to be a weather forecaster to predict this impending thunderstorm.

Can you really rely on the cloud to keep your marketing intelligence safe? What steps has your organization taken to evaluate CRM, email or other cloud service providers for security?

In the past few weeks, curiousity about Google’s new social network, Google+ has been sweeping the web. Some would say the new platform has gone viral…  But to what extent?

The term “viral” has been hot since the spread of social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube, where a bored group of college kids could create, upload and share a 2 minute parody clip that spread like wildfire among their friends, their friend’s friends, their likers and their friend’s likers in a matter of minutes. Instant popularity and Andy Samberg status.

Viral capability is what Facebook is notorious for. It’s what product, service, cause and self-promoters love about it.  And just like email, we’ve learned how to infiltrate the system and use it to spam people. “Save the Date” “Tickets on Sale” “Join us at”… They should rename the News Feed to Promotion Board, because that’s really what it’s become. As a result, people have started to wonder, are these people really my friends? 

Take a look around at your friend profiles and see how many friends they have. Is it over 1,000? 2,000? My own sister has close to 3,000 and I saw only 2 of these people at her last Christmas party.  Friends… Really? Hold the phone.

Now enter Google+… Like their other products, it’s clean and easy. Immediately you see a collection of buckets or “circles” to place your contact lists into, eliminating the need to label someone you’ve obviously never seen out of work before a friend, yet still keeping them on the radar for networking purposes.  Nice feature. 

But my real question is, is it viral? When relationships are no longer defined as simply “friends” ”likes” or ”follows,” where does the mass-sharing component fit in? The easy answer… it doesn’t. And I think that’s what I like about it.  Google+ is semi-private, intimate. And marketers are going to have a tricky time infiltrating it on any kind of mass level. As an online marketer who’s exhausted after 5 years of jumping on the latest web 2.0 platform craze, this might be one I don’t have to worry about and can actually enjoy. Google+ brings social networking back to the basics… relationships. And if only for a little while, I hope it stays that way.

From Facebook to Linkedin to Twitter to Foursquare to Quora… all shouting their viral capability and threatening that if you’re not using us, you’re not being heard. There’s a reason they call it viral  networking and it’s because you’ll usually get a virus from it.

Hats off to Google.

Business intelligence: We all strive for it. Marketing research departments are notorious for shelling out big bucks to survey companies for information on their customers, competitors and emerging products and technologies but often forget that this type of information can be easily and more cheaply found in their own backyard.

How? Through techniques such as content marketing, also known as sharing content in exchange for information. In this digital age,  companies are learning to package and exploit basic services in exchange for email addresses, consumer preferences and potential competitors through their own marketing channels and social networks.  The more value a visitor can find in the content, the more information he or she is willing to part with.  The old adage “give and you shall receive” comes to mind. Some just call it good marketing manners.

So how is this method of collecting information better, or cheaper for companies?

Traditional marketing research firms and survey data providers have unique methodologies.  They each have their own recipe for how data is collected, stored and categorized.  When you purchase data from a third party, you lose control of where that data came from, who it came from, how old it is, and what system is used to interpret it.  In a nutshell, you really don’t know what you’re getting. It comes down to the basic principle that if you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself. 

Sounds expensive though, doesn’t it? Not really. Think about your company’s basic services… whether you sell financial consulting, Ferraris or light bulbs, there are always “freebies” you can easily part with, package  and provide to get people in the door. Instead of spending all your resources marketing your paid products, put some effort into marketing your free ones. You’ll get a much higher response rate and gain valuable information to help in future sales and marketing efforts. The trick is to make sure there’s enough value in your free content so visitors don’t leave without giving you what you need in return.  The benefit is you get to control what information gets collected and from who.  And the best part is you just spent a fraction of the resources to obtain better quality information while also engaging with potential customers.

Sounds like a no brainer, doesn’t it?

Over the past few years, Linkedin has added some wonderful, free features that can help bloggers maximize their online efforts.   Below are some of the top activities you can do to not only increase blog awareness, but generate traffic and, ultimately, engagement levels:

1. Join Groups – Your free Linkedin account will limit you to 50 groups, and my advice is to take advantage of all of them.  Join groups in your core market that cover topics similar to those you blog about.   You can join or leave groups risk-free at any time.

*Tip: Try to join groups with at least 500 members, but not more than 5,000.  If the group is too small, you’re wasting valuable group allowance and will not be reaching as many people as you could.   However if the group is too large, you’re running the risk your message will be diluted among thousands of other posts.   I like to aim for a more tight-knit group in the 1,000 member range.  Remember, you have 50, so 1,000 members in each group equates to an audience of 50,000 people.

2.  Make Friends – Start connecting with your fellow groupies.   Linkedin is like a mini-rolodex, and the more people you connect with, the larger your blogging network and distribution list will become.

* Tip: At any time, you can export your Linkedin connections to Excel and import to your desired e-mail program to alert them of new blog posts.

3. Share Your Content – Share relevant, meaningful content that links back to your blog.  Post relevant discussions in groups and comment on other posts.  Short on time?  Try using RSS. In many situations you can contact the group owner and set up your Blog feed to auto post content within the News section of your group.

*Tip: Linkedin has an easy-to-use content sharing feature that makes  it extremely easy to post a link to multiple groups at the same time.  Once you’ve posted a new discussion, click the down arrow and select “Share.”

4. Have Fun (and don’t spam!) – Linkedin is a free and easy way to promote your blog posts while building your own professional network.  You can easily share as much blog content that you feel your group will be interested in, but try not to abuse the platform by overposting or spamming. 

*Tip: My advice to those sharing on Linkedin is to ‘keep it real’ and keep it relevant. 

Good luck!

For most people, the goal of blogging is to engage others with your content, whether it be your views, news or experience. The successful blogger will not only succeed at articulating this content, but will generate activity on their posts in the form of clicks or comments. While it can be rewarding to know that people are drawn to and are engaging with your content, the feedback you receive may not always be pleasant.

Below are the most common types of negative blog comments:

Stabs – Comments that are obvious attacks on your credibility.

Spam – Inappropriate link dropping, profanity or swears.

Corrections – Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, or corrections to facts or figures.

When should I delete a blog comment?   

The decision to delete or address an unpleasant comment is the right of the blog author and he or she alone. Personally, I advise not to delete any comment unless it is spam, and most social media and blogging “gurus” would offer the same advice.  Still, I can understand how this may be difficult for new bloggers. I remember receiving my first “content stab” and it was a tough choice. I had written an opinion post advocating why we should find passion in our work. It was the essence of why I chose to start writing and ultimately formed the basis of my personal blog. When I received a negative comment on it, my first thought was “Where do I delete this?”  To me, the comment was a stain that needed to be cleaned. But then I started to think, shouldn’t I be happy someone is reading my post? What will they think if I remove this? Will they tell others? After giving it some thought, I decided to keep and address the comment. After all, transparency and honesty are the keys to building trust in relationships, and isn’t that a primary goal of online networking?   

How do I address a negative blog comment?

If you’ve chosen to address the problem rather than delete it- great. My advice to others faced with a negative comment is to determine where the feedback is coming from. Is the commenter a competitor, disgruntled colleague or someone who is trying to discredit your post? Could it be a spammer, a newbie or someone not versed in social media etiquette?  Or perhaps it’s another subject matter expert who is just trying to help you correct a mistake? Understanding who this person is can help you determine why they may have chosen to leave the comment and help frame your response.

At a minimum, try to do the following:

1)      Review your post – Try to see where the commenter is coming from. Read your post from their perspective and see if the comment makes sense.

2)      Check your facts – Did you have sources for your facts or figures? Did you remember to give credit where credit is due?

3)      Check your tone – Does the post sound helpful or bossy? Oftentimes a critical or negative tone will invite similarly-toned feedback.

If you can come to an understanding where the commenter may be coming from- great. Let him or her know that you understand. It is important to appear diplomatic rather than argumentative. Everyone is entitled to an opinion and there’s no harm in understanding the commenter’s perspective even if you don’t necessarily agree with it.

If the commenter was correcting you, thank them for catching it and taking the time to make a contribution to improve the post. Most of our every-day written accomplishments were created from collaboration and with the help of others.

If the commenter was challenging your facts or figures, cite your sources. Let them know where you’re getting your information and cover your bases.

The most important take away from receiving a negative comment on your blog is to not take it personally. Be thankful that others are taking the time not only to read but to interact with your content. There are many blog posts that only have crickets, so if you’re receiving comments (good or bad) you’re obviously doing something right.

As a marketing manager, my primary responsibility is to build marketing campaigns that make people want to use our products.  To do this I need to have solid data to work from, such as contact information, needs, and levels of interest about our prospects and clients. For this reason, my marketing database (or CRM in this case) is as valuable to me as any campaign I can dream of, as the strength of my campaign is only as good as the quality of data used to design it.

Locating and addressing the root cause of data quality issues is paramount in conducting efficient business operations in any organizational department.  Here’s a quick framework of how I do it:

1) Define the problem. Without trying to solve it, I make a statement as to what the problem is. What is wrong with what and include the frequency and isolation of occurrence if possible.

2) Gather facts. Again, without trying to solve the problem, I collect as much data ABOUT the problem as I can, asking other team members for input and looking for patterns as I go.

3) Compare and relate. Do any of the facts I’ve gathered relate exclusively to the problem I’ve described? If yes, list them.

4) Determine probable causes. Use deductive reasoning to weed out possibilities and identify your probable root causes, keeping in mind you’ll likely have more than one.

5) Test and check. Test each probable cause and check results to see which causes the problem to occur.

Root Cause Analysis in Practice

Here’s the theory in practice.  Imagine I need to build a contact information report for my sales team that is based on geographic territories. I set up the report and hit run, but the report only shows 10% of records with a state field.

1) Problem: Contact information report is missing state field on 90% of records.

2) Facts: There are no known performance issues with the database. The contract information report is built correctly (pulling the desired data fields with the desired filters). State fields were imported recently and this is the first time I’ve ran a report using State as a field.

3) Exclusive Facts: The contract information report is built correctly (pulling the desired data fields with the desired filters). State fields were imported recently and this is the first time I’ve ran a report using State as a field.

4) Probable cause: State fields were not imported correctly.

5) Test: Create a file to import with test data where state should be. Import the file and check results. Still not imported correctly? This is your likely root cause.

For more assistance with locating, and more importantly, addressing data quality issues, MIKE2.0 offers an open source solution to help address and correct them. Check it out when you have a moment.