Go ahead, test your marketing knowledge to see how well you know the answers to the most critical marketing questions:

You have the data – now go use it to your advantage and harness the information to make your marketing metrics meaningful.

What marketing questions does your executive team ask your marketing team? Tell us what questions are discussed within your organization in the comment section.

Make your data-driven marketing your go to survival tool. Get Started.

The post Are You Data-Driven Marketing Minded? appeared first on GoodData.

Crush It With Attention

Don’t allow your future quota-crushers to languish in your CRM. Put in place activity timers that shine a light on any opportunity that passes one week in your sales pipeline with no activity. An effective practice is to create a chart pitting “Days at 10%” vs. “Days With No Activity”. Alert the team that opportunities lolling in the upper-right will be reallocated to other reps. Perhaps you can hand them to your fierce, hungry new reps who are slaving away in the sales prospecting mines.

Quality AND Quantity

A second check is to monitor each rep’s ability to convert 10% opportunities to a stage deeper in the sales pipeline. This metric helps separate inefficient prospectors from the pack, and chips away at reps who may be hiding behind a wall of fluffy pipeline building activity. Fortunately, it’s easier to course correct a rep who is a pumped, but inefficient, prospector. As we know, prospecting is a habit steeped in science, but closing deals is an art.

To combat orphaned 10% opportunities, focus on these 3 sales metrics:

1. Days Since Last Activity
2. # Days at 10%
3. % Conversion Rate of 10% Opportunities

Explore our suite of sales metrics in a live demo. Get Started.

The post 10% Is The Most Dangerous Stage in Your Sales Pipeline appeared first on GoodData.

It is more important than ever to know every aspect of customer behavior–and that power comes from marketing technology. Today’s marketing departments own—and, increasingly, buy—the tools that measure customer behavior. If an organization wants to know how to drive conversions from their websites, which activities are building the sales pipeline and how social media is impacting revenue, to name a few, they are turning to marketers. The marketing role is evolving and expanding, and it is becoming a key strategic driver.

The CMO is ready to evolve into a more technology-enabled role. A CMTO, according to some. Several stats show us how marketers are influencing technology more than ever before:

• CMOs will spend more on IT than CIOs in 2017
• Also by 2017, spending on high-tech marketing is expected to increase 11%
• The marketing department, not the CIO, buys 30 percent of marketing technology
• This year, nearly 70 percent of companies plan to increase spend on data-related marketing initiatives.

The role of marketing has become a more strategic one. Marketers are now influencing not only customer interactions, but the direction of the business at large, driven by a bird’s-eye view of how customers operate. As marketing becomes not just a functional role, but a driver of new business, companies will need to re-think how they procure and adapt technology. It’s a brave new world, and technology marketers are at the helm.

Like this blog? You might also enjoy:

• The Art and Science of Data-Driven Marketing
• Marketing Metrics Overload: What Really Matters
• 7 Strategies For a Stellar Executive Marketing Dashboard

Find out how data can empower your marketing team.

The post The Era of Marketing Technology Has Arrived appeared first on GoodData.

Watch What I Do, Not What I Say

Begin by tracking their Activity Metric, that is, their cadence for fielding inbound leads, making outbound calls and sending prospecting emails.

• Inbound marketing leads: watch closely the Lead Response Time to see who is “on it” and who is letting valuable leads languish.
• Outbound calls and 1:1 emails: track the pace at which these are sent out. Make sure the pace is consistent without the peaks and valleys which may indicate a lack of focus and follow-up.

The Quality Side of the Equation

With lead pursuit and outbound prospecting on track, look to the quality of interactions to identify who needs help prospecting. To gauge this, track sales metrics like Contact Rate. That is, how many activities does it take to generate a single early-stage pipeline opportunity.

It’s helpful to provide new sales reps with activity quotas. This will help them track against a clear goal and alerts you when a new rep is going sideways. You can then step in to help them get more comfortable with the products they’re selling, fix whatever process issues may be holding them back, or otherwise address the issue.

We recommend keeping these four sales metrics in mind as you embark on a more data-driven approach for evaluating your new sales reps:

1. Contacts Per Week (calls, emails, inbound leads)
2. Lead Response time (for marketing leads)
3. Contact Rate (# calls to generate an opportunity)
4. Lead-to-Opportunity Conversion % (for marketing leads)

To see some interesting sales metrics in action, take a moment to review this interactive sales dashboard.

The post Sales Metrics That Forecast New Rep Performance appeared first on GoodData.

To eliminate end-of-the-quarter surprises, here are 3 key sales analytics tips to help you deliver “intelligence” across your sales organization.

 Create a visual that allows you to see change  & progress for each stage in the pipeline.
To make an accurate prediction of how the quarter will end, you need to be able to see pipeline movement at a glance. All pipeline opportunities should be thoroughly analyzed to determine actions that may be required. Start by tracking changes in the pipeline over the period – this will show you where your dollars are going and what business was lost, won, reforecast or moved out to another quarter.

A good view into the current position highlights risks in your pipeline in time for you to course correct.

 Identify “Stuck” Deals.
Every organization has an ideal sales pace and velocity. Deals that follow this progression are more likely to close than deals that lose momentum or get stuck in stage. Where is there progress? How are “actuals” trending towards goals? What is the path to reaching goals? By looking closely at actual performance versus the goals, the sales organization thoroughly understands the scope of work that still needs to be completed.

Understanding the ideal velocity for a winning deal can help the sales organization identify which deals are off pace or which deals got off to a good start but got stuck in stage. Focus your efforts on these deals, as they are the ones that can save your quarter.

 Always know your current position.
You can’t manage what you can’t see, and access to the right information at the right time helps you make correct decisions. These decisions are crucial in determining priorities, optimizing sales leads and giving you insight into every sales opportunity. Use your comprehensive sales data to visually show how much business has closed, what deals are expected to close, what deals are at risk and if anything significant happened to effect the quarter. This means showing progress towards quarterly goals across all regions and products, and estimating where the quarter is going to finish.

In other words, what is the overall outlook for the quarter?

Ready to turn your opportunities into wins? Take a look at more “intelligent” sales analytics.

The post 3 Tips to Improve Sales Pipeline Performance appeared first on GoodData.

I couldn’t have made that statement five years ago. What’s changed is a new generation of powerful, best-of-breed cloud products that delivers vertical capabilities — like data analysis, collaboration or customer support — all working together through open APIs. It’s like the cloud version of Lego blocks that can be combined into fascinating new shapes. The result? Accidental innovation, as SaaS partners and customers mix and match apps and functions at will.

Today’s announcement between GoodData and Box shows what I mean. Because of our open APIs, the new GoodBox Bash provides a common data platform that makes it easy for customers to analyze how effectively teams collaborate on Box. Companies can understand, for example, how team members use shared content, see successful habits, and easily measure the value and effectiveness of content. Customers can start using the new GoodBox Bash practically “out of the box.”

Compare that experience with the smoke-and-mirrors press releases of partnerships we’ve come to expect from legacy software vendors — lots of noise signifying nothing.

And that’s my underlying point. When we and other SaaS companies announce joint products or partnerships, it actually means something. This is the beauty of the new “cloud economy.” Imagine being able to combine and immediately deploy cloud-based apps from amazing SaaS companies — like Box, Zendesk for customer service, Zuora for online billing and GoodData for data analysis. I like to think of it as best-of-breed finally putting inbred out of its misery. (Or at least, ending of the misery of enterprises chained to the likes of Oracle, SAP and IBM.)

Just think of the ramifications for IT organizations! After more than 20 years of promise, the tech industry has finally liberated IT to focus on business priorities. That means quickly giving users powerful software that does exactly what they need, with the scale and reach of the cloud. Accent on “quickly” and “powerful” — two attributes that define the new generation of best-of-breed cloud apps and platforms.

I’ll use GoodData as an example. Our GoodData platform handles a mind-numbing array of big-data software built to handle tasks like data processing, data mining, programming, workflow and queries. And while these programs are incredibly powerful, they’re also amazingly complex. At GoodData, we handle all these programs at the back end so that our customers don’t have to. And that means our customers can quickly deploy powerful analytics across all their important data.

We aren’t alone in that philosophy. In fact, I’d say all great best-of-breed SaaS companies share the same mission and goal — which is to make it easy for business to consume technology.

Now, instead of worrying about flipping switches and keeping the lights on, IT folks take on new responsibilities related to the cloud — from governance, integration, capacity planning and security to vetting apps across all the lines of business. And that means the cloud economy satisfies another promise technology vendors have been making for years: Turning IT into a strategic partner that enables business value.

As I said: the cloud wins. Welcome to the new cloud economy.

Read Box’s blog or visit our website for more information on GoodBox.

The post The Cloud Economy: Putting an End to Inbred Software appeared first on GoodData.

To avoid getting caught in the madness of the data sphere, take a look below to find out which marketing metrics deserve attention and which are safe to let go.

When you are feeling bogged down by the metrics and data, take a step back and try to determine which marketing metrics directly relate to your company’s bottom line. You want social media and marketing analytics that are tied to sales or revenue. If the marketing metric does not tell you much about sales and instead, provides a meaningless number that makes you feel good about the brand, it is safe to focus your attention elsewhere.

Don’t get caught up in the madness – preview more marketing metrics in action.

The post Marketing Metrics Overload: What Really Matters appeared first on GoodData.

Read our new eBook, The Art and Science of Data-driven Marketing and get the scoop on how yesterday’s marketing artists can become today’s marketing scientists.

Show Me the Big Data
In order for big marketing data to be truly valuable, marketers must become marketing ‘scientists’—not actual experts in science, but rather probers and testers, who not only capture and trace information, but who also organize it and pinpoint what data-based strategies truly work, when they work and with which audiences they work best. To prove their worth and keep their seats at the revenue table, CMOs need to be armed with data that’s both measurable and actionable.

It’s All in The Analysis Silly
Generally speaking, most marketers are in agreement that a lack of data isn’t the problem. Marketing information is relatively inexpensive to collect and store, and you’re probably already amassing huge quantities of it. But knowing how to best access, organize and then act on that data confounds and frightens some marketing leaders, because a poorly planned approach could mean the difference between success and failure. Data-driven marketing is the science of harnessing big marketing data and turning it into decision-making metrics.

Selling It Upstairs
You’ve got to show executives how data-driven marketing will help you contribute directly to the bottom line. You can align your argument with each stage of the classic marketing funnel. Show how you will drive traffic to the top of the funnel by using metrics to know more precisely which marketing programs perform best, thus enabling you to better allocate your finite budget. And of course monitoring metrics for website conversions, lead nurture, customer marketing and e-commerce conversions are readily available and can be mined for significant efficiency gains. Adding all the gains together along a realistic timeline is likely all the structure you’ll need for executive buy-in.

Time to make your marketing data-driven? Contact us to find out how.

The post The Art and Science of Data-Driven Marketing appeared first on GoodData.

Your primary marketing dashboard is typically presented weekly to executives, and viewed daily by your marketing team. Done right, it has the amazing ability to keep executives calm and your marketing team focused. Done wrong and you’re slogging through the weeds every week with your CEO, and every executive in the room is suddenly donning a bright orange “today I’m a marketer” cap. Nightmare.

Here are 7 strategies to help you craft an elegant, effective marketing dashboard:

#1 Map To Your Marketing Strategy
Every executive in the room should immediately recognize that the metrics on your marketing dashboard map directly back to your marketing strategy. If your marketing team has committed to support a specific share of sales, then focus on that, or a metric that’s a good near-term proxy for a sale, such as SQLs (Sales Qualified Leads).

#2 Save the Strategic Reports for Later
Make it clear that longer-term metrics will be covered on a quarterly basis. For example, total marketing spend per sale is a critical metric, but is best discussed on a quarterly basis.

#3 Tell Your Story, Backwards
CEOs and VPs of Sales have notoriously short attention spans, so cut to the chase. Tell them the conclusion of your story first, and then back it out and paint the broader “why” picture. This may mean presenting your marketing-supported sales (or SQL) chart first, then registrations, and then website visitors. Basically, just flip the classic marketing funnel upside down.

#4 Keep It Simple
Suppress the marketer’s urge to show everything. By keeping your marketing dashboard simple you’ll not only focus the conversation, but executives will quickly become familiar with the metrics, so you’ll spend less time explaining the charts and more time discussing trends, tactics and strategies.

#5 Forecasting Calms Mental Calculators
Rather than force everyone in the room to do the mental math to project numbers out to the end of the month, do it for them! Use a simple straight-line projection for the month and explain away any aberrations caused by holidays or blizzards. You can also use a more sophisticated forecast if, for example, you know inside sales won’t be done calling all leads generated in May until one week into June.

#6 Keep Tactical Metrics in the Back
You’ll definitely want to build a series of robust tactical marketing dashboards, but make sure these only make an occasional appearance. If you’re wheeling these out then something especially good or bad is happening.

#7 Have Your Story Ready
We’re all marketers so we think in stories. The same should be true for your marketing dashboard. Before you head into your executive briefing map out the path you’re going to lead them down, particularly if it’s clear you’ll have to jump off the weekly dashboard and into your tactical metrics. If you lead the way everyone will better enjoy the ride.

Ready to Create Your Own Marketing Dashboard? Contact Us To Get Started.

The post 7 Strategies For a Stellar Executive Marketing Dashboard appeared first on GoodData.

Even if you attended the Marketo User Summit this year, though, you probably didn’t learn it all. You had to pick and choose which events to attend. So in this blog, we’d like to provide you with five tricks that you may have missed. All of them take an hour or less, and will immediately benefit you as a marketer.

1. Create Approved Smart Lists

You can use smart lists time and again without having to worry if you have all the right filters. They save you time and elbow grease.

To create smart lists, go to your leads database. Create new folder called “Approved Smart Lists”. Within that folder, create your individual smart lists. Some ideas for approved smart lists are: Product Categories, Do Not Market, Active vs Inactive.

2. Deleted Records Data Management Campaign

Leads and/or contacts get deleted in our CRM system whether we like it or not. There are always going to bogus emails in your CRM — the Donald Ducks (donaldduck@goofy.com) and the ASDF’s (asdf@asdf.com) of the world. If sales deletes these addresses from your CRM, don’t you want them gone from Marketo, too?

There is a simple fix. Create a triggered smart campaign that will delete the record in Marketo if it’s deleted from your CRM. I’ve included instructions below.

3. Long Live the Job Title

Job titles are not the most important thing to consider when segmenting. During one of my sessions, Veronica Holmes from Nuix gave an example of how her title is Marketing Operations Manager but she manages three directors! This was an “a-ha” moment for me. Why didn’t I know that a manager could be the boss of three directors?

Like many others, I assumed that everyone does everything in the same order. The VP of marketing in is charge of the  director of marketing, who leads the marketing manager. Obviously, this isn’t always the case.

To fix this hierarchical blind spot, you should start to look at a person’s job role and/or department. You can either start asking about these things on your forms, or you can assume a lot of them. For example, if my title is online marketing manager, I can assume that my department is marketing. Now you can use this information to segment your audience and provide them with more relevant content.

We do this as a batch campaign, meaning we run it in batches every week. If you have a large number of new leads you may want to think about doing it daily. Here’s how you do it:

4. Interesting Moment – Bounced Email

If your sales team is utilizing Marketo Sales Insight (MSI) to send sales emails, they probably want to know whether or not an email has bounced or is invalid. I’ve created a super simple interesting moment that will let sales know if this happens.

5. Exclude Non-Commercial Email Addresses

If you’re anything like me, you know that non-commercial domains, such as gmail.com, yahoo.com, hotmail.com, etc., don’t convert in specific channels. Make sure to exclude those domains from forms. Eric Hollebone from Algonquin College has already done all the heavy lifting and has full directions and javascript on the Marketo Community, you can find it here (You’ll have to login to access it). Don’t be intimidated, it’s really easy!

By taking the steps above, you’ll find that your marketing life is that much easier—and braver.
Did you learn anything at the Marketo User Summit that you’ll be implementing soon? Share it with our readers!

Like this post? Subscribe to our blog.
Ask for  a demo of our GoodMarketing Bash to see how GoodData enables CMOs to run more effective marketing campaigns.

Additional Resources:

Using Marketing Analytics To Gain a Holistic View Into Your Marketing Data
Marketing Revenue Attribution: Sourced vs. Influenced Revenue

The post 5 Ways to a Brave New You – Takeaways from Marketo Summit 2013 appeared first on GoodData.