Author: Sarah Kelleher

Why John Lewis’ Gender-Neutral Clothes Should Make B2B Marketers Think

For a long time now, clothing retailers have suffered the odd social media backlash for particularly poorly thought-out clothing designs. This is often directed at children’s clothes which have a history of ‘pretty princess’ vs. ‘aspirational superhero’ type messaging for girls and boys respectively. Continue reading “Why John Lewis’ Gender-Neutral Clothes Should Make B2B Marketers Think”

The Importance of Switching Off

The week before last, I had an internal debate with myself about switching off, in more ways than one. With a much-needed week’s holiday to Crete, I was really looking forward to totally taking a breaking, switching off my mind and, more literally, switching off my work mobile. However, a couple of my projects were reaching key milestones and a small part of me wanted to be able to check in every now and again to make sure everything was ticking along.

It’s a common issue for a lot of cloud-based workers these days. Just a quick Google search of ‘switching off from work on holiday’ will show you that. With such easy and instant access to connect with your emails and systems from anywhere in the world, especially with the recent changes to roaming charges in Europe, it becomes very tempting to check in.

Annual leave and, more generally, work-life balance is so important in this busy, connected age we live in. If we don’t give ourselves the proper time to unwind, relax and reset, the impact on mental and physical health can be serious. We all deserve a little time to ourselves and to enjoy the world around us.

So, as we head into holiday season, here’s my gentle reminder to switch off… properly.

Using Salesforce Campaigns to track Marketing ROI

When discussing attribution of marketing ROI, I am asked regularly “Surely other companies must have this same problem?”. And my answer is always yes. They do. Attribution is very difficult and there’s no secret sauce that will magically tell you what made a customer buy something. However, that’s no reason to despair. By using the native connection between Pardot and Salesforce Campaigns, you can generate some excellent insights that will show the success of your campaigns and help you determine where to spend your precious marketing dollars. There are a number of attribution models and the appropriate one for your company will depend on the types of campaigns you run and your sales process. Some good places to start are:

  • First Touch
  • Tipping Point
  • Campaign Influence (or Multi-Touch)

The most important consideration is how to weight your ROI based on the kinds of campaigns you are tracking. A large sponsored event may generate a number of new leads, but they may only become customers weeks or months down the line after interacting with several other campaigns in the meantime. It might not seem appropriate to attribute all the revenue to that initial event, but at the same time you need to make a decision whether to sponsor it again next year. This article from Ricky Wheeler provides great examples for how his company, Ebsta, track their Campaign Attribution, which will hopefully inspire you in your quest for Marketing ROI reports.  

The truth is Campaign Attribution is hard. There are many different models, including more advanced ‘Multi-Touch Attribution’ which weights every marketing touch on the way to a sale — or more basic models like Last Touch or First Touch which are significantly easier to implement and manage. There is no one-size-fits-all for campaign attribution models and the route you take, will be governed by the type of business and campaigns you run.

 

When to Ask for Marketing Automation Help

Marketing Automation is a big investment for most companies and it’s critical to show a good return and improvements to your marketing strategy and performance. In this case, partnering with a consultancy or agency to help you with this may just seem like an additional cost. So, when should you ask you Marketing Automation help? Continue reading “When to Ask for Marketing Automation Help”

Managing your Marketing Strategy In-House: Is Your Team Ready

Following an implementation of Marketing Automation, you’ll start to take the first steps into managing your Marketing strategy without the support of your implementation partner or agency. For many, this can be a daunting task, but there are some simple steps and questions you can ask yourself that will ease the process considerably. Continue reading “Managing your Marketing Strategy In-House: Is Your Team Ready”