B2B marketers & The digital camera

Think about what the digital camera has done to the average picture taker. In the "old days" of film you had to be selective on the pictures you took as film was expensive and you only had 24-36 pictures at your disposal (unless you were carrying extra rolls of film). Once the roll was done you had the roll developed and hoped for around 70% quality photos. As the years went by you slowly became a better and better picture taker, learning through trial and error what environmental factors drove the quality of your photos. Even without the ability to instantly receive feedback on the picture quality your average quality photo percentage grew to around 90% per roll. As a picture taker, you were forced by the limitations of your technology to become better if you wanted to increase quality, reduce cost, and avoid the opportunity cost of not capturing those "one in a lifetime" moments.

Then came the digital camera and all its benefits!?!
Much to Kodak and Fuji's dismay the digital camera was a revolution not an evolution. Almost overnight the digital camera brought immense benefits that film was no match for. Loaded with a 2GB memory card, a digital camera can hold 180 pictures at "no cost." In addition, the photographer (I use that term loosely) can review the photos instantly for quality and immediate feedback. This technology enabled and afforded the average picture taker the ability to snap as many pictures per minute as a professional sports photographer sponsored by Kodak. In addition, the digital camera user gained the benefit of instant feedback on the quality of their pictures. By reviewing photo's as they were taken the picture taker could, in theory, accelerate their photography learning curve. The digital camera was going to enable "average joe" to capture images like a Pro!

The Problem
The problem is that most digital camera owners are "trigger" happy, quickly filling their memory cards with 180 images hoping that a few of the pictures will turn out. Sadly, the average digital camera owner never learns anything about taking a better picture. Because pictures are "free" to take the camera owner keeps pushing the button hoping for "one good picture." Further more, even though the capability and technology exists on the camera, the average photographer rarely reviews and filters the photos for quality before dumping them on the home hard drive. It is only when the masses of snap happy and skill deprived picture takers want to do something with their pictures a few months or few years later that they learn what a mess they have created. 3-hours into cleaning up bad photos and realizing the images they hoped they had captured do not exist do they learn what the cost of not becoming a more skilled photographer truly is.


B2B marketing technology advances are accelerants not replacements
Unfortunately many of today's B2B marketers exhibit very similar behaviors to the average digital camera owner.

• The cost of gathering unqualified inquiries and contacts through list sources and database providers has dropped substantially over the last 5-10 years, not unlike the cost of taking a picture. As a result, many marketers have become less concerned with precise targeting, qualifying, and filtering and more driven by the quantity of inquiries they can generate.
• A majority of B2B marketers do not filter, cleanse, and pre-qualify the inquiries and contacts they have captured before loading them into their marketing database, SFA, CRM system. Unfortunately, unlike the average digital camera owner, who's only expense is time to filter through their gigabytes of bad photo's, the B2B marketer creates significant expense and opportunity cost for their organization.
• For many, the low cost and automated inquiry capture tools available to the B2B marketer have become an easy "solution" rather than an enabler to enhance the lead lifecycle management processes and lead generation programs already in place.
  

While it shows my age that I have a decade or more of film based photography under my belt I am glad for the experience. Without the cost and quality drivers of a film based camera I may not have become the photographer I am today. And yes, the digital camera has enabled me to become even better.


B2B lead generation sales leads management Lead management lead lifecycle management B2B lead management lead generation
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Does Your Marketing Database Need a Health & Wellness Plan?

When will the health & wellness craze come to Marketing Database Management?

It seems to me the Health care management industry has done a better job than most to capture the operational and financial value of proactive "preventative maintenance" over the past few years. As B2B database driven marketers I believe we should take a collective look at what the health plan providers are doing as we are sure to learn a thing or two.

As the cost of health care continues to skyrocket YoY the health plan providers that sell to businesses have taken a novel approach to their marketplace. Rather than pouring low return and seemingly futile efforts into reducing the cost of servicing people with illness and chronic disease they have developed new products and services aimed at reducing the number of people affected by illness and chronic disease. The model is intended to create a win-win-win situation.

Health & Wellness Service Benefits

• The healhplan provider wins by selling a new "health & wellness" program to the company and reducing direct care costs for treating illness and chronic disease.
  
• The Business wins by realizing reduced YoY healthcare premium increases as an incentive for purchasing the Health & Wellness plan. The business also wins by having a more productive workforce as, in theory, the employees will take less sick time.
• The employee wins by receiving health club membership discounts, wellness counseling services, dietary counseling services, and living a healthier and longer life.
  

As a B2B marketer that works with a wide range of B2B company's marketing databases I have been afforded a unique, near real-time, comparative view into a broad spectrum of B2B marketing databases. The conclusion I have drawn is that a majority of B2B marketing database efforts and investment are spent on servicing "illness" and "chronic disease" within the database and not on health and wellness.

A sampling of typical marketing database investments to service "illness" & "chronic disease":

• Using an external provider to "cleanse" the database on a quarterly or annual basis. The underlying disease causing a constant stream of bad and inaccurate records is ignored while the symptoms of the illness are treated periodically.
  
• Investing in new databases to support specific marketing initiatives & business units. Over time multiple databases exist with redundant and/or conflicting record details and the reliability and accuracy of all databases are called into question.
• Investing in ongoing database integration efforts (outside of mergers, acquisition, partnership efforts)
• Investing reactively in new lists and append services as the primary source of "targets" for new marketing campaigns
  

A small sample of marketing database Health & Wellness investments to prevent "illness" & "chronic disease":

• Marketing database alignment to the businesses go to market strategy as a core strategic focus
  
• Inquiry management processes, and pre-qualification filters to ensure only new and quality records enter the marketing database
• Activity tagging of records to measure the frequency, content, and responses illicited from the multi-modal marketing campaigns that touch a given record in the database
• Subscription management programs to support best practice driven e-mail marketing campaigns

If more of us can migrate our focus and investment to marketing database health and wellness initiatives I would argue we as B2B marketers can create the same win-win-win outcome!

• The B2B marketer wins by realizing improved delivery, opt-in, and response rates across all campaigns that leverage the marketing database.
• The B2B Company that employs the marketer wins by realizing a lower cost per sale, increased intimacy with prospects and customers, and increase revenues.
• The end customer/prospect wins by receiving the information they need, when they need it, in the format they desire.