By Jamie Grenney, VP of Marketing, Infer
It’s no secret that marketers who embrace data and use it to optimize their programs are able to innovate faster. I’ve had the pleasure of talking with many of these forward-thinking marketing experts, and compiled the following list of seven ways they’re incorporating not just data, but powerful predictive intelligence, into demand generation campaigns:
By Jamie Grenney, VP of Marketing, Infer
It’s no secret that marketers who embrace data and use it to optimize their programs are able to innovate faster. I’ve had the pleasure of talking with many of these forward-thinking marketing experts, and compiled the following list of seven ways they’re incorporating not just data, but powerful predictive intelligence, into demand generation campaigns:
Predictive Marketing Campaigns: With tools like predictive lead scoring, marketers have instant insight into the cost per “good lead.” It’s no longer enough to just look at form completes or cost per lead in general — you need to understand the cost of each good lead you bring in. Unlike rear-view metrics, predictive gives you instant insight so you can quickly eliminate campaigns that fail to deliver great leads. And likewise, you can allocate your marketing funds to only the best tactics.
Predictive Content Marketing: Predictive intelligence is also game-changing for content marketers, because it gives you a proven, automated way to research incoming leads and quantify how many good ones you’re creating at the top of the funnel, so you can tweak your content mix accordingly. This insight also helps you build trust by passing only the very hottest content marketing leads over to sales, which ensures they make their way through the sales pipeline rather than being sent in a batch to your nurture database. Even if some leads aren’t ready to buy, you’ll still determine whether your content is attracting people who are good fits for your product, which can help guide your investments and justify more resources.
Predictive Search Engine Marketing: It’s challenging to optimize your Google AdWords bidding strategy when you can’t tell the good leads apart from any old form complete. With predictive lead scoring, modern marketers are using their model’s instant feedback in order to shift budget to the keywords and campaigns that deliver the right leads.
Predictive for List Buys: When purchasing contact lists, smart marketers request a 48-hour out clause in the contract, so they can measure vendors according to the percentage of good leads they deliver. You can tell contact list providers upfront that you’re going to run their lists through your predictive model to see how well it matches with your target prospect.
Predictive Lead Nurturing: Many businesses have leads that slip through the cracks because on the surface they didn’t appear to be good leads, the timing was off, or your inside sales team was spread too thin at the time the lead came in. But predictive marketers are going back to automatically research and re-score all of their leads — even if they haven’t been active on the website. With the thousands of external signals used in predictive scoring, you can surface older high-scoring leads, and put them on specific journeys with special offers. You can optimize resources further by segmenting your lists and emailing only those leads that are likely to buy, or even investing in high-impact campaigns like direct mail or events for just your best leads.
Predictive Website Optimization: Many folks are also using predictive to better evaluate the marketing performance of their web site. By running frequent A/B tests to compare the effectiveness of different content and/or designs, you can hone in on techniques that increase the number of high potential leads who engage on your site.
Predictive At Events: Some marketers even use predictive to identify hot prospects in real-time at their trade show booths. A prospect could walk up to your booth, enter their email address, and see right away how good of a fit they are for your product. By highlighting the top ten signals your predictive model identifies, you can even show them why they’re a good fit, which prompts a useful conversation and increases conversion rates. And if they’re not a great fit, it will save you both valuable time during a busy event.
These are just seven ways today’s data-driven marketers are making an impact on their companies with predictive intelligence. Undoubtedly, there are many other opportunities to boost demand generation campaigns by leveraging useful data. Feel free to share your predictive marketing ideas and experiences in the comments below.
Jamie Grenney (@JamieGrenney) is well known for his thought leadership on topics such as CRM adoption, sales and marketing best practices, crowdsourced innovation, viral marketing, and social strategy. Prior to Infer, Jamie spent 11 years at salesforce.com, most recently as vice president of social media and online video.
