I have to preface this post to avoid misconceptions: We love science. And we practice it. From in-depth Google Analytics for our own and clients’ content marketing efforts to marketing automation, landing page analytics and split and multivariate testing, we do it. And we believe that it’s an important part of any digital marketing practice.

Now that’s out of the way, let’s admit it: There’s lots of crap science floating around in digital marketing.

Marketing directors wrongly attribute an uptick in web traffic to the latest blog post. Product managers A/B test three different elements of a landing page, and draw conclusions about only one of the elements. Bad science is as ubiquitous as good science, or more so.

This post isn’t about how to create good tests, though. It’s about how to navigate, manage and succeed in digital marketing when the foundations we’re operating on are fallible. How do you make the best of science, when some (or much) of it may be bad

First, here’s a few ways that bad science can hurt you and your marketing organization:

1. False positives and false negatives: Bad science leads marketers to draw incorrect conclusions. The false negative is unfortunate (“Oh, that didn’t work, so we won’t do it again.”) The false positive is deadly (“That was great. Let’s pour our money into that.”)

2. Viral ignorance: Bad science trickles down through the marketing organization. Marketing data that the CMO recognizes as somewhat faulty, but good enough for rough guidance, tends to become law the farther down it goes in the organization. In this way, false assumptions can become company gospel.

3. Ossification of marketing: In an environment where people gain power by debunking or supporting ideas with data, managers hurl (questionable) figures at each other to win points. The willingness to experiment and change (the life force of a brand) gets sacrificed on the altar of science.

4. Over-reliance on analytics: A pervasively scientific environment can become paralyzing. Arguments and counterarguments freeze all action. (This is, for B2B companies, not a danger for the foreseeable future).

So, if you can’t prevent bad science from happening, and you want to continue using science to guide your marketing, what can you do?

Some suggestions:

Document and codify findings.
Like any good scientist, marketing analysts need to describe and record in detail how they derived their data. This, along with the findings, should be preserved in a central place for anyone in the organization to see. This at least helps cut down on incorrect anecdotal citations of science, and allows bad science to be identified and discarded.

Encourage experimentation.
Experiments are the lifeblood of science. You need to test out wild hypotheses, retest earlier results, challenge truths, again refute old failures and invite people to build on your science. The degree to which an organization experiments is, in my experience, directly linked to its maturity and health. Sadly, many fail here (marketers are career-minded, risk-averse animals by nature).

Drive education.
The more people around you that understand science and data, the less likely that you’ll trip up over the bad stuff. The first lesson: Doubt science. Yes, you should act based on scientific insights, but you should not take for granted the soundness of your foundations. Also, a few lessons in basic statistics help.

Share your knowledge.
This is related to both the codification and experimentation. Please share your insights with your marketing agency. Agencies are, for obvious reasons, often on the sharp end of experimentation. Why not equip them with your findings before they start experimenting for you? Some of your more data-savvy agencies may even be able to help you improve the quality of your findings (ahem).

That’s my advice on coping with science, good and bad. What’s your experience with analytics?

© Ryan Skinner for Velocity Partners, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: analytics, data, management, metrics, science

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IBM interviewed 1,734 CMOs between February and June about their jobs. The feedback is, on the whole, unsurprising. But, amongst all the noise about what is important or significant to marketing today, this is a healthy reminder (or correction).

I suggest anyone who works in marketing to give it a read. You’ll find the full IBM CMO report here. I’ve pulled out some highlights:

The vast majority of CMOs believe there are three key areas for improvement. They must understand and deliver value to empowered customers; create lasting relationships with those customers; and measure marketing’s contribution to the business in relevant, quantifiable terms.

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A full 79 percent of the CMOs we talked with believe the level of complexity will be high or very high over the next five years. But only 48 percent feel prepared to cope with it. A telecommunications CMO in Brazil described the prevailing view when she said: ‘The empowerment of the consumer is generating more complexity. The mental model is changing. We are facing a major social transformation.’

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CMOs are stretched. Even those who work for the most successful organisations are struggling.

In our last CEO study, 88 percent of business leaders – and an astounding 95 percent of those heading the most successful organisations – said getting closer to their customers was the top priority for realising their strategy over the next five years.

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One reason most organisations struggle to get the customer insights they need is that they still focus on understanding markets rather than individuals. At least 80 percent of CMOs rely on traditional sources of information such as market research and competitive benchmarking to make strategic decisions.

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An industrial products CMO in the United States spoke for many when she said: ‘I don’t see how we can go forward without embedding IT into marketing.’

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But the traditional marketing ‘funnel’ has now become a series of loops. Customers evaluate a shifting array of options. They consult (off- and online) peers, family members, independent experts and retailers or manufacturers, although the latter come last on the list.

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The differences are particularly marked in the phases devoted to stimulating awareness and desire and building advocacy after the sale. As a telecommunications CMO in Belgium commented, ‘Marketing performance tracking is driven by customer loyalty. End-to-end (E2E) lifecycle management is key.’

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CMOs are well aware they will have to be much more financially accountable in the future. In fact, 63 percent of respondents believe marketing ROI will become the most important measure of success over the next three to five years.

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The increase in the percentage of CMOs planning to use outside agencies for lead management, customer and data analytics and direct or relationship marketing was especially pronounced. The percentage of CMOs planning to get help with IT, call or service centre management and tracking and measurement also rose by more than half.

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Where should you begin? Create a small action team composed of eager marketing futurists – individuals within your organisation who have the potential to be CMOs themselves someday. Give these people a short timeframe to review the issues and develop recommendations for resolving them.

© Ryan Skinner for Velocity Partners, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: analytics, CMO, digital, reference, reports, research

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A Velocity B2B Real-Time Segmentation Dynamics™ Report

Sometimes, when you forget your Google Analytics password and just need a quick look at the source of your downloads, it’s time for the Velocity Real-Time Segmentation Dynamics™ Report generator, developed with our partners at 3M (Post-It™ Division) and Pentel (Fineliner™ Division).  Fast insight, old school.

© Doug Kessler for Velocity Partners, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: analytics, digital marketing, web analytics, Web Marketing

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We’re always talking about how important a story is in marketing — but now someone has finally proven it with an ingenious experiment.

As summarised in a recent DoubleThink post, the experiment (by New York Times columnist Rob Walker) is called Significant Objects and the idea is really simple:

• Buy cheap things on eBay
• Give each one to a writer and ask them to tell a story about it
• Put each item back on eBay with the story attached
• Analyze the data

So, what’s a story worth? Quite a lot as it happens. The first 100 objects sold were bought for $120 and sold for $3,612 — a markup of 2,776%. The video of Rob Walker presenting the experiment at the PSFK conference is here.

And take a few minutes to browse around DoubleThink, an excellent blog on ‘Insight, Analytics and new Marketing’  by Dimitri Maex and Colin Mitchell, top strategists at Ogilvy.

© Doug Kessler for Velocity Partners, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Add new tag, analytics, B2B content marketing, B2B marketing, Copywriting, insight

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We go into it in more depth here, but if you’re in a bit of a rush, here’s the Digital Velocity offer in 8 tweets of no more than 140 characters:

Tweet 1
B2B Web Lead Generation Insight
Where we map your place in the web universe. Your keyword footprint, SEO power & social media presence.

Tweet 2
B2B Web Start
Fast track web design and build, from personas and wireframes through design, content & CMS implementation.

Tweet 3
B2B Content Factory
Core content to drive traffic and incite response; papers, eBooks, videos, webinars – content that moves markets.

Tweet 4
Digital Engagement and B2B Demand Generation
Campaigns to drive downloads, visits and sign-ups – PPC, search arbitrage, outbound, social…

Tweet 5
B2B Lead Nurturing and Scoring
Automated campaigns that score leads by behaviour and demographics; feed hungry sales beast

Tweet 6
B2B Online PR
Buzz campaigns that harness the power of social media, engage key bloggers and create backlink storms.

Tweet 7
Analytics & Reporting
A powerful toolset to show how you’re doing, campaign-by-campaign, hour-by-hour.

Tweet 8
B2B Web Training
Bring the expertise in-house. We’ll show you how to work the web, create campaigns and nurture leads.

Again, you can drill down into each of these right here, but that’s not a bad start: eight tweets worth of Digital Velocity.  To put it to work, all you have to do is click.

© Doug Kessler for Velocity Partners, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: analytics, B2B lead generation, B2B marketing, B2B marketing campaigns, B2B technology marketing, CMS, Content, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Demand Generation, digital marketing, lead nurturing, lead scoring, metrics, Online PR, reporting, Social Media, web training

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