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Demand Generation

Pulling Back The Curtain On Marketing Metrics: 4 Pros Tell-All

Delivering high-quality leads was marketers’ biggest challenge over the last year, according to Demandwave’s 2017 State of B2B Marketing Report, As we move into 2018, how will you ensure your leads are actually qualified a.k.a. ready to have a conversation with sales? The key lies in marketing metrics.

We have access to more customer data than ever before; however, what separates the good marketers from the great marketers is the insights they choose to focus on. We asked  Masha Finkelstein, Director of Demand Generation at Betterworks, Joel Parent, VP Business Development at Icuc.social, Michele Studhalter, Marketing Specialist at Igloo Software, and Edwin van Riessen, Director of Demand Generation at Deluxe Corporation what they’re doing to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to identifying high quality leads. Here’s what these forward-thinking marketers had to say:

What’s wrong with using marketing metrics like clicks and form fills to measure your success?

Masha: “Using clicks and form fills doesn’t get to the ROI part of the equation. If you put a cute puppy on an ad you’ll get lots of clicks, but they won’t make it anywhere close to pipeline.”

"Metrics like clicks and form fills are only tracking the desired END condition and do nothing to advise on the success of efforts in capturing the hearts and minds of prospects. We need to know what is being read, consumed and at what length - or else we can't do much to influence clicks/fills with our content production efforts." Joel Parent, VP of Business Development, ICUC Social

Michele: “Clicks and form fills only tell one part of the story. Being able to differentiate the person who spent 5 seconds glazing over the first page of a whitepaper from the person who spent 30 minutes watching an entire webinar leads to deeper insights and qualification. The more you know about your buyer the better you as a marketer can tailor their journey, increasing your likelihood of converting that lead.”

Clicks and form fills only tell one part of the story.The more you know about your buyer the better you as a marketer can tailor their journey, increasing your likelihood of converting that lead.

What are the benefits of measuring content consumption instead of other marketing metrics?

Masha: “We implement the content consumption metrics into our lead scoring – it’s an early indicator of leads that are more engaged and interested in your products and thought leadership.”

Consumption metrics are an early indicator of leads that are more engaged and interested.

Joel: “It’s all directional. What works better than something else?  What headlines, content, designs get more attention?  What content helps motivate someone to convert?  Does one type of content translate into more or less relevant prospects?”

Why did you decide to start measuring content consumption instead of or in addition to other marketing metrics?

Joel: “It helps tell the *WHOLE* story. Turning prospects into paying customers is a messy, convoluted, organic and inconsistent journey.  Anything that can help provide an advantage along this journey is a worthwhile effort. Consumption patterns help provide an X-ray view of what is actually going on.”

“ We measured marketing results purely on number of Sales, Accepted Leads and the revenue that these opportunities generated. We encountered two issues with this type of measurement. 1. The buyer is never a single person. The bigger the deal, the more people are involved. We needed to start tracking the aggregate level of engagement at an account level. 2. No matter the source of the lead or the buying stage, our account-based marketing iniatives were increasing win rates and velocity, even though the number of SALs remained the same” – Edwin Van Riessen, Director of Demand Generation, Deluxe. “ We implement the content consumption metrics into our lead scoring – it’s an early indicator of leads that are more engaged and invested in your products and though leadership” – Masha Finkelstein, Director Demand Generation, BetterWorks

How do you make content consumption part of your lead scoring or other qualification processes?

Joel: “That’s a work in progress – with disparate systems responsible for content delivery, marketing automation and CRM it can be quite challenging connecting all the dots. But first we really needed some means of featuring content collections with built-in consumption measurement tools, and tools like PathFactory has enabled us to edge closer to our ultimate content marketing goals.”

Masha: “We add extra points to leads that review three or more content pieces at a time. We also surface the information around which content topics the leads were mainly interested into sales so they are more prepared when they do qualification calls.”

"We built a brand new attribution model, which illustrated a higher win rate across accounts with a higher lead score, no matter the source. Content consumption by contacts with the appropriate roles was clearly contributing to sales. Instead of focusing on setting appointments with individuals, the focus of our Marketing team has shifted to driving engagement within the whole account." Edwin Van Riessen, Director Demand Generation, Deluxe

Curious to learn more about the new data set revolutionizing marketing strategies and how you can get started? Read our eBook: Why You Can’t Afford To Continue Measuring Marketing The Same Way.

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