Optimizing input and output

So, the lead-gen side of things continue to hum along nicely. Based on my 7-day rolling average, we have doubled our raw lead counts since the product launch which is already double of what we used to get before the effort to optimize Google paid-ad's began.

The benefits of doubling leads is obvious. What is not obvious is that there is not a corresponding increase in junk leads. What I mean by junk lead is that there are times when people leave nonsensical information to request a product demo. Now, what I do not get is that it takes time to fill out the form and, since we are not a sexy company or sell a sexy product, why anyone would bother is really beyond me. If you are a competitor wanting to get product information, I can understand. But, to request a product demo with phone numbers like 1234567 and e-mail like aa@aa.com is just... Anyway, suffices to say that these people do not impress me with their intelligence. So, before I get really off the track here. I am very gratified to note that the increased raw leads does not lead to increase in junk leads and I am always looking for ideas on how to minimize junk leads. Please let me know!

So, I got the initial designs for the new landing page. They look darn good compare to our current offering. Bless our webmaster's soul, but good UI/design sense ain't one of the key hiring criteria for that position. Long story short, it fits well with our expectation as well as the various "best practice" sites that the on-line marketing guru has shared with us a while back (See the entry on "Harte Hanky"). Amongst the various design elements, I pick the one with a top banner showing the head shots of two (attractive) female professionals (I am sure they are model, but they look professional) while everyone else is pushing for a faded computer/keyboard/hands typing image. What won the argument is that while neither images are objectionable in an objective sense, studies have shown creating an association with a positive image can heighten the conversion rate. And, what is better than two women on the banner watching you enter your contact information like a good IT boy (yeah, it is a guy) should. This is just the design and will take a few more days to get it up and running. This is going to be fun!

So, Mr Whup-ass and I had a little chat on marketing. Specifically, my new mandate is to increase the lead gen activity by 5x going forward. The question that I am suppose to answer by next week's management retreat is how will I do it.

This is basically an optimization problem on possible input and expected output. On the input side, there are a series of "tools" that go from completely passive like boosting our Google ranking to aggressively active like buying directory information and call into the IT departments of these organizations. How I segregate the "tools" is to consider them along two dimensions. One is cost and expected ROI in both immediate and longer time frame. For example, buying ad's in a trade magazine is unlikely to provide an immediate return for the investment as it takes prolonged exposure for it to work. Whereas, doing a webinar is likely to have quick result as the audience is self-selecting. The other consideration is how much control we have in manipulating these tools. One tool that is difficult to control is trade show because once committed, there is nothing you can do if the audience is the wrong market and/or insufficient people show up for the show. On the other hand, Google AdWord is a beautiful tool that gives you a great deal of control and allows quick turn-around in experimentation. So, my current strategy consists of continuing the current program such as search engine ranking, Google paid-ad's, Harte Hanks, etc. The new program would be in the area of starting a weekly webinar series and boost PR output in terms of white paper, case study, and contributed articles.

Separately, in discussion with VP of Sales, his target is to get the monthly raw lead count to about 100 so that, factoring in our current conversion rate and closing rate, it would lead to each rep doing $1 million of revenue per year. Purely by that number, I think I am siting pretty since I am already exceeding that monthly number. But, of course, I should not be too cocky and start crank up the program. After all, we can do worse than having to bring in more sales and marketing people to offload the work. That, I am all for!

Speaking of Harte Hanks, it is commencing tomorrow. Our second test call came in and it sounded okay. Much more smooth flow and the branching really help in making the caller sound intelligent. We did have to make a change that mid-way through the question, there is a "read" where the caller talks about why this is an important issue and how we are a key player in this space. That is a fair idea and, if executed properly, should be powerful. One question I had was to put that "read" before or after the question where the call-ee answers how satisfied he is with his current solution. My thinking is that it should be before the question to plant the seed of doubt that maybe he is missing out on a good stuff and indicate that he is less satisfied with his current solution than what he otherwise would have said. Conversely, I do not want the call-ee to get agitated because he just said that he is perfectly satisfied with his current solution and was told that there is something even better out there. Long story short, I asked the Harte Hank lady to tell us where that "Read" should go given her vast experience, and she put the "read" after the question. (It is a shame that I cannot test out the two scenarios, it would be interesting to find out empirically.)

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