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6 Ways To Address COVID-19 Churn in the Software as a Service Industry.

Fri, 04 Sep 2020 19:04:12 GMT

1. Find out why customers are cancelling.

The very first thing you need to know to reduce churn is find out why customers are cancelling. What are the main reasons? Can these reasons be prevented?

2. Create an attractive onboarding process.

When customers sign up for a service, does a company just leave them to set everything up on their own? Or do they proactively guide users to get the most from their subscription?

3. Build a customer loyalty program.

We all know that one person who is loyal to a specific brand. The one who wouldn’t dare wear a pair of Nike's out of their loyalty to Adidas, or the person who refuses to go to any other grocery store except the Carrot.

4. Analyze churn by customer segments.

One of the biggest challenges with reducing churn is just figuring out where to start. Do you have a lot of cancellations for your lowest price tier, while your enterprise customers stick with you long term? Figure this out quickly and be as proactive as possible.

5. Listen to your customers and document everything.

When a customer complains or gives feedback, it’s a sign that they want to use your product. They just have an issue, or a suggestion for something that could make your product better and increase their chances of sticking with you. Did you write that down?

6. Recover failed payments.

Have you ever wondered how much money you're losing out on when your customers credit card payments don't go through? Well, I got curious and decided to find out. I looked at our entire customer base and compared the amount of failed charges to their MRR. I found that on average, SaaS and most subscription companies lose about 9% of their MRR due to failed payments. That appears to be normal so accept that, anything higher is a concern.

SaaS Companies Cannot Be Evaluated By Traditional Performance Metrics.

Fri, 04 Sep 2020 19:01:14 GMT

Account health & user engagement needs to be monitored closely & regularly, as lack of user adoption can lead to churn. SaaS companies also need to monitor several different types of metrics that reflect how well the software is being used after the subscription begins.

Accurate assessments of financial and operational health require an understanding of the drivers relevant to the Software as a Service business, along with the meaning that they convey and their relative significance.

Here they are :

Annual Contract Value (ACV)
Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)
Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)
Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA)
Churn Rate %
Cost to Serve (CTS)
Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV)
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
Daily Active Users (DAU)
Full Time Employees (FTEs)
Gross Margin %
Growth Efficiency Index (GEI)
Lead Velocity Rate (LVR)
Lifetime Value, Months
Lifetime Value, Dollars
Monthly Bookings
Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)
Number of Customers
Renewal Rate %
Total Contract Value (TCV)

Cost Per Acquisition

Sat, 27 Apr 2019 01:33:03 GMT

Overview

("CPA") is defined as the cost you incurred for every acquisition you made. Acquisitions can vary from case to case, an example of an Acquisition can be a lead or sale. The formula for CPA is Total cost of (Sale) / total number of leads recorded (Visitors, Opens, Clicks, Form Submissions, Trials, Demonstrations, etc), i.e. CPA = Total Cost / Total Number of Leads. For a lead based account you need to consider 'Converted Clicks' as the total number of leads in the formula and for online orders you need to consider 'Conversions' while calculating the CPA. As mentioned above CPA can be calculated at various levels right from campaigns to the keyword. And it is always a good practice to look at all of these levels to understand if your campaign / outbound effort is profitable to you (or not). To calculate CPA, you'll need to take cost and divide it by conversions. If you want to know the cost per converted click (as opposed to cost per conversion), you will take the cost and divide it by converted clicks.

Goals

1. Define Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) : Many companies view 'sales' as a one-size-fits-all department within an organization. But, it's important to understand that in the modern age of selling, there are specialties within the sales process that help create a more efficient and productive approach to customer acquisition and growth.

2. Define Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL) : Marketing Activities means activities occurring before launch, during the evaluation period, and after the purchase, and are including but are not limited to, strategic planning, and modifications to the programs KPI’s as they’re discovered.

Observation

1. Inside Sales: SQL (CPA Lead: $5.82 / CPA Sale: $178.78)

Inside sales combines outbound and inbound sales activities with a mixture of phone calls, emails, webinars, lead generation, target research and a variety of other "in the office" activities. Inside sales professionals can generate new business, develop opportunities and move them through the sales process resulting in a purchase order. And, inside sales reps can also work with customers after the purchase to grow accounts with cross-selling, add-on sales and renewal sales.

Total Cost (monthly): $3,200+

1 employee, paid hourly + commission @ $20 per hour, 40 hours per week, 22 business days per month.

Leads Generated (monthly): 550

25 (revenue generating activities) per day

25 (revenue supporting activities) per day

Sales Generated (monthly): 18

Average: 10:1 ratio on lead to demo = 55 demos

Average: 3:1 ratio on demo to sale = 18 sales

2. Sales Development: SQL (CPA Lead: $2.91 / CPA: Sale: UNQUALIFIED)

Sales development is a subset of inside sales that focuses exclusively on generating new business and filling the pipeline with new opportunities. Sales development representatives focus on heavy prospecting, nurturing leads to stay top-of-mind, and are focused on qualifying opportunities. Sales development is a critical component for any sales team, as new opportunities are the lifeblood of any company's success.

Total Cost (monthly): $3,200+

1 employee, paid hourly + commission @ $20 per hour, 40 hours per week, 22 business days per month.

Leads Generated (monthly): 1,100

50 (revenue generating activities) per day

0 (revenue supporting activities) per day

3. Account Management: SQL (Increases LTV-Lifetime Value: CPA: UNQUALIFIED)

Account managers work with existing customers to ensure a high customer experience. They typically pick-up the relationship with a client once a purchasing decision has been made, and account managers are responsible for training, and coordinating the on-boarding process. Account managers also review product usage information, help resolve customer problems and make sure everything is working properly to guarantee the customer continues to renew.

Total Cost (monthly): $3,200

1 employee, paid hourly @ $20 per hour, 40 hours per week, 22 business days per month.

Leads Generated (monthly): 0

0 (revenue generating activities) per day

50 (revenue supporting activities) per day

4. Field Sales: SQL (CPA Lead: $16.82 / CPA: Sale: $528.58)

Field sales is the traditional approach to selling. Sales reps are out in the field, working with prospective customers and clients face-to-face. Field sales leverages the personal touch method, but can be inefficient and time consuming as the rep needs to travel from one appointment to another. Field sales is most effective for high value sales and heavy relationship sales. Field sales reps are most effective when appointments are scheduled, and much of the in-office sales work is completed for them. This means they should be partnered with an inside sales rep (at the very least a sales support staff member) to ensure the high activity work is also completed.

Total Cost (monthly): $3,700

1 employee, paid hourly + commission @ $20 per hour, (- expenses), 40 hours per week, 22 business days per month.

Leads Generated (monthly): 220

10 (revenue generating activities) per day

10 (revenue supporting activities) per day

Sales Generated (monthly): 7

Average: 10:1 ratio on lead to demo = 22 demos

Average: 3:1 ratio on demo to sale = 7 sales

5. Sales Support: SQL (Reduces Churn Rate % / CPA: UNQUALIFIED)

Every sales department needs support, and it's in the best interest of the company to make sure the field reps or inside sales reps are not the employees doing this work. Sales support includes client retention, list generation, target customer research, data analysis, data cleansing, quote generation and purchase order processing. Sales support is critical for an efficient sales team. The work is important to ensure a successful sales campaign, but it's preferred to have a staff member who's not tied to a sales number completing these tasks. Revenue generating sales professionals need to spend most of their time in front of customers (phone or face-to-face).

Total Cost (monthly): $3,200

1 employee, paid hourly @ $20 per hour, 40 hours per week, 22 business days per month.

Leads Generated (monthly): 0

0 (revenue generating activities) per day

50 (revenue supporting activities) per day

6. Inbound Marketing: MQL (CPA Lead: / CPA: Sale: )

Inbound marketing is a technique for drawing customers to products and services via website, landing pages, email marketing, social media, paid advertising, search optimization and branding. Inbound marketing provides information, an improved customer experience and builds trust by offering potential customers information they value via company sponsored newsletters, blogs and entries on platforms. Compared with outbound marketing, inbound reverses the relationship between company and customer. In fact, while outbound marketing is going to push the product through various channels, inbound marketing creates awareness, attracts and helps new customers with channels like blogs, social media, email marketing, etc.

*An initial investment would be required to start, however once the desired strategy is planned and launched, all activities would be automated, 24/7/365

Total Cost (monthly): $0 - Investment Opportunity

No employee’s necessary, fully automated, 24/7/365.

Leads Generated (monthly): 22,590+

Unlimited potential (revenue generating activities) 24/7/365

0 (revenue supporting activities) 24/7/365

Sales Generated thru Self-Serve (monthly): 1 - Optimizing: Conversion Rate

Average: 50:1 ratio on Landing Page Signup to Sale.

Search Optimization Leads Generated (monthly): 20,000 - Optimizing: SEO

Average: 10:1 ratio from Search (20,000 ) to CTR-Click through Rate onto Website.

Website ‘Organic Leads’ Generated (monthly): 2,000 - Optimizing: CTA, Call-To-Actions

Average: 80:1 ratio on visitor to website (2,000) to form submission.

Website ‘Form Leads’ Generated (monthly): 25 - Optimizing: Content + CTA’s

Average: 80:1 ratio on visitor to website (2,000) to form submission.

Trial Program Leads Generated (monthly): 50 - Optimizing: Value Proposition + CTA’s

Average: CVR - Conversion Rate from Landing Page to Signup 2% (email marketing only)

Average: CPA - Cost Per Acquisition from start to finish is $0 (email marketing only)

Landing Page Leads Generated (monthly): 97 - Optimizing: Content

Average: CTR - Click Through Rate on Landing Page is 2:1 ratio. (email marketing only)

Average: CPA - Cost Per Acquisition from contact to LP visit is $0 (email marketing only)

Email Marketing Leads Generated (monthly): 418 - Optimizing: Content

Average CTR - Click Through Rate: 8% or 12.5:1 ratio (4,000 contacts)

Average: OR - Open Rate: 11% or 9:1 ratio (4,000 contacts)

Average: CPC - Cost Per Click to Landing Page visit is $0 (auto-responder built)

Average: CPA - Cost Per Acquisition from contact > email del. $0 (auto-responder built)

Paid Advertising ‘Search + Display’ Leads Generated (monthly): 0 - Budget Pending

Average: Search CPC - Cost Per Click to Landing Page visit is $1.78

Average: Display CPC - Cost Per Click to Landing Page visit is $0.20

Average: Search CPA - Cost Per Acquisition from start to finish is $59.18

Average: Display CPA - Cost Per Acquisition from start to finish is $60.76

Social Media ‘FaceBook + LinkedIn’ Leads Generated (monthly): 0 - Budget Pending

Average: CTR - Click Through Rate to Landing Page visit is 10:1 ratio.

Average: CPC - Cost Per Click to Landing Page visit is $1.27

Average: CVR - Conversion Rate from Landing Page to Signup 2.5%

Average: CPA - Cost Per Acquisition from start to finish is $55.21

7. Marketing Automation (Eliminates Repetitive Tasks / CPA: UNQUALIFIED)

Marketing automation refers to software platforms and technologies designed for marketing departments and organizations to more effectively market on multiple channels online (such as email, social media, websites, etc.) and automate repetitive tasks. Marketing departments, consultants and part-time marketing employees benefit by specifying criteria and outcomes for tasks and processes which are then interpreted, stored and executed by software, which increases efficiency and reduces human error. Originally focused on email marketing automation, marketing automation refers to a broad range of automation and analytic tools for marketing especially inbound marketing. Marketing Automation platforms are used as a hosted or web-based solution, and no software installation is required by a customer. The use of a marketing automation platform is to streamline sales and marketing organizations by replacing high-touch, repetitive manual processes with automated solutions. Marketing automation is a platform that marketers use to plan, coordinate, manage and measure all of their marketing campaigns, both online and offline.

*An initial investment would be required to start, however once the desired strategy is planned and launched, all activities would be automated, 24/7/365.

Total Cost (monthly): $0 - Investment Opportunity

HubSpot Marketing Professional

Leads Generated (monthly): 0

0 (revenue generating activities) 24/7/365

Unlimited potential (revenue supporting activities) 24/7/365

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What is Marketing Automation and How Does It Help?

Sun, 21 Apr 2019 17:49:42 GMT

Marketing automation is the process of using software to complete repetitive marketing tasks designed to nurture sales leads, personalize marketing messages and content and in the process, save marketers’ time and effort.

By automating many of these tasks, users can more effectively send the right message, to the right user at the right time. This provides strategic inbound marketing and automation solutions. “Marketing automation is all about understanding your audience so you can adapt the way you communicate to them based on their unique buying journey. Businesses can scale their processes and campaigns so they can reach more people, with less effort, because it allows you to track every interaction and score engagement, you can be more personalized and targeted with your messaging, while still maintaining efficiencies.

How Marketing Automation Works

Marketers deploy strategies through their marketing automation systems in a number of ways many of which are outlined below.

Specifying Criteria:

Marketers who use a marketing automation system specify criteria and outcomes for tasks and processes. That criteria gets interpreted, stored and executed by the marketing automation software while scoring the quality of leads and ultimately delivering data to sales teams often through customer relationship management (CRM) software.

Leveraging Cookies:

Marketers who use marketing automation also leverage cookies installed in a website visitor’s web browser . Marketers can track their visitors through the website pages, build scores for the prospect and trigger more profile data based on web actions.

Using Forms for Contact Information:

For marketers, the name of the game in marketing automation is building qualified leads for sales teams based on lead nurturing and lead scoring (more on that later). “Marketing automation is an easy way to help you qualify leads,” Davis said.

Marketers use forms to collect contact information that allows them to qualify leads. Based on the information submitted, you can have automation set up to place leads in respective buckets depending on the initial data collected, Davis added. At that point, you are put in a position to identify your “best” leads and determine the best means of communicating with your new lead to ensure a higher closing rate.

Allowing a Mix of Inbound and Outbound Strategies:

Marketing automation systems promote a strong mix of inbound and outbound strategies, and the ability to properly score leads. This helps marketers understand which leads are qualified and ready for sales, and which ones need more time to learn and understand the challenges that you can help them solve, Hendrix noted.

Marketing Automation Components

Marketers use marketing automation software in order to build quality leads for sales. According to marketing automation provider Marketo , the software can be divided into a few key marketing parts :

Central marketing database: Marketing data with prospect and customer interactions and behaviors are stored and nurtured to allow marketers to segment and target the right message to each customer.
Engagement marketing engine: Marketing automation allows marketers to conduct marketing processes and conversations across online and offline channels.
Analytics engine: Marketers can test, measure and optimize marketing ROI and impact on revenue.

Marketing automation is also designed, according to Quick Sprout , to:

Target content specifically tailored to an individual’s specific user profile
Group customers and prospects by what they like: common behaviors, interests and demographic details
Test different variables like email send times and subject headings
Integrate marketing channels like customer relationship management databases or CRMs.

Marketing Automation Features

Email marketing is the most common place where businesses start using marketing automation, and there are many powerful features available, according to ActiveCampaign’s Davis:

Tags and custom fields give users a way to group or segment their contacts, enabling them to communicate with different segments in a more effective, personal way
Emails, forms, site tracking and attribution enable users to communicate with and understand their customers’ behavior
Visual automation builders give users an easy way to create a complex flow to guide customers through a unique customer journey
Reporting brings in all of the data and allows users to measure the effectiveness of their marketing
Pipelines effectively manage the sales process as it allows marketing teams to efficiently “hand off” leads to sales to close a deal.

Act-On’s Hendrix said marketing automation needs to be able to manage the entire lead lifecycle. This calls for features that include the following.

Inbound marketing tools such as social publishing, landing pages and forms
Outbound marketing tools such as email marketing and A/B testing
Automation with lead scoring
Lead nurture workflows
Analytics for reporting on the effectiveness of your campaigns, tying them back to revenue won.

According to Salesforce , which offers marketing automation through its Pardot product, marketing automation features also include:

Visitor tracking: Track website visitors and which pages they went to, for how long, what their web visit pattern looked like
Hosted and tracked marketing files: Automatically generated tracking URLs allow for content tracking
Real-time sales alerts: Sales reps can set parameters on when to follow-up with leads
Lead scoring and grading: This can help improve the sales and marketing relationship dynamic by aligning scoring and grading on all prospects and customers. This allows scoring based on activity level and grades to see how likely they’ll be to buy a product or service
Lead nurturing: Marketing automation software helps deliver the right messaging to prospects automatically, leading them to helpful content and ultimately to a conversion and sale
Forms and landing pages: Build custom landing pages without having to know HTML and link marketing assets stored in automation systems to use as downloadable content. Progressive profiling helps marketers shorten forms to ensure prospects aren’t turned off by long forms. They can be shown additional fields in future forms allowing marketers to build up a detailed prospect profile over time.
Closed-loop reporting: Marketers can calculate individual campaign costs at any time and automatically have opportunity data sync between CRM and marketing automation systems.

Good vs. Bad Marketing Automation

As efficient as automation is, it can't be the only marketing strategy. The worst thing a business can do is automate all of its marketing. “By over-automating your marketing, you end up managing a customer journey instead of optimizing it. Each business is different, but good marketing automation happens when a business is thoughtful about the personal relationships with its customers,” he said.

Sending impersonal messages or canned responses to customers is ineffective, Davis continued, and often a turnoff to customers. “Instead, using the information you know about your customers and their actions can help you build optimized customer journeys where every personal feels like an individual,” Davis said.

According to Hendrix, there are two types of "bad" marketing automation: People who use a marketing automation platform ineffectively, and platforms that label themselves as “marketing automation” even when that’s not the case. “True marketing automation allows you to track each touchpoint that a person has with your brand, take that in and adapt your messaging accordingly. It should enable you to not only automate processes, but anticipate your buyers' needs and accelerate their buying journey. Marketers need a solid marketing automation strategy, rather than just automating the same tasks they’ve been doing all along," Hendrix said.

Marketing Automation vs. CRM

Marketing automation and customer relationship management systems are two different platforms. But they undeniably work together. CRMs manage customer data. Although you can have a CRM without marketing automation, marketing automation cannot exist without a CRM, according to Davis. The CRM serves as the central database for marketing automation. It’s where all the information is stored for each contact along their customer journey, he added. “It also allows multiple people, across multiple departments within your organization to remain synced up with the current state of the contact to ensure consistency in communicating,” Davis said.

Marketing automation focuses on the needs of the marketing team and CRM is focused on the needs of the sales team, Hendrix said. “Marketing automation is your communication engine, while CRM is your database of record,” she added. Some marketing automation systems support native integrations for CRMs like Salesforce, SugarCRM and Microsoft Dynamics . These integrations help marketers create a connected and automated lead management process that enables optimization over time, with the right reporting.

What is Enterprise Marketing Automation?

B2B marketing organizations tend to rely on enterprise marketing automation systems that enable them to generate interest in the product or service by nurturing a relationship with the business customer, according to SelectHub . Smaller businesses that market mainly to consumers focus on marketing automation systems that help them engage the customer with the brand and the product rather than nurturing relationships.

Instead of focusing on contacts the focus shifts to accounts in enterprise marketing automation systems, from where Account-Based Marketing (ABM) comes. “Enterprise marketing automation is a solution that supports the entire customer lifecycle with tools for inbound and outbound strategies, and makes it easy to get data in and out of the platform,” Hendrix said. “With robust APIs to get data in, this allows for more robust workflows and strategies, and the ability to get data out is essential when it comes to integrating with business intelligence tools for fully customized reporting. Enterprise platforms are ones that have been proven to be scalable, as they support customers with databases of over 1 million records.”

Four Marketing Automation Trends to Watch in 2019

Brian Wallace, president of NowSourcing , wrote last month in CMSWire that technological improvements related to machine learning, chatbots and analytics "will drive a number of notable developments in the field of marketing automation ."

Wallace cited four marketing automation trends. Automated Social Media Outreach

Social media automation tools like SocialDrift allow marketers to automate various interactions that would otherwise be tedious to complete manually. These interactions can drive social media users to take actions like following your brand or visiting your organization’s website.

Integrated Behavior-based Email Workflows

Email workflows have been around for some time, but integrated workflows that use other channels (like social ads) in addition to email are a newer phenomenon. Thanks to tools like Ad Espresso and LeadsBridge , it is now possible to trigger retargeting ads only when contacts enter specific workflows.

Predictive Lead Scoring

Tools allow organizations to unleash the power of machine learning on lead scoring. Using probabilistic calculations, software platforms like Infer can reliably determine what leads are more likely to convert to customers.

Personalized Content Recommendations

Marketing teams can now run account-based marketing programs like the one from Marketo with ease. Content marketers can develop content for specific target accounts or types of target accounts, and personalization platforms can display specific pieces of content to website visitors based on IP address.

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4 Notable Conversion Rate Optimization Trends

chrismoakler@gmail.com (eMacity Leads) — Thu, 09 Aug 2018 12:51:05 GMT

What will be the latest new trends shaping the success of CRO? What new tools or services will appear? Will CRO start to approach the popularity of web analytics or SEO?

Conversion rate optimization is no different than any other marketing arena in the sense that the field sees its fair share of trends each year. These trends involve new and improved ways to engage audiences and enrich their experiences in the marketing funnel.

#1 Increase in Sticky Website Elements

Sticky website elements (like the navigation bar) follow the visitor down the page as they scroll. This helps improve the
user’s navigation experience by reducing the clutter. It does this because, with a sticky navigation bar, every section essentially follows the user around. It can also potentially increase your conversion rate. A sticky navigation tab is a good example of a sticky website element. The Nishiyama homepage employs a sticky navigation bar. The navigation may be the most popular sticky website element, but other web page elements can have this functionality, too. Some e-commerce websites include a sticky “add to basket”’ element , along with sticky filters and product descriptions.

#2 Increase in Video Marketing

Video marketing is not a new practice, but over the past years video marketing content has increased rapidly. According to Cisco’s Visual Networking Index , by the year 2020, global consumer internet video traffic will account for 80 percent of all consumer internet traffic. And why wouldn’t it be when videos offer a better chance at converting visitors on both landing pages and homepages because they are able to add a human element to the page .

The Bamboo HR landing page uses video to explain what the service does. Crazy Egg’s homepage is another example of video being used to engage prospects and get them to take action.

Video as a medium hasn’t just gained popularity on websites and landing pages. In fact according to Twitter, videos and images get the most retweets . Video ads have also become increasingly popular, with over 50% growth in video viewing on Facebook — video ads on the social network have become very common.

Videos are an important marketing medium because they help visitors visualize using your product or service. Plus, they speak to visitors on an emotional level which is a good practice when you’re trying to persuade them to click the call-to-action button.

#3 Marketing Automation

Marketing automation allows you to optimize your marketing funnel much easier than ever before. To build an optimized marketing automation program, it’s highly recommended you map out customer journeys while creating content to match each specific funnel stage. The marketing software can take care of the rest by ensuring that all your leads are captured, nurtured, and ultimately, converted to sales.

As a discipline, marketing automation has become the norm for brands big and small across the world. In fact, according to Gleanster, 77% of CMOs at top performing companies indicate that their most compelling reason for implementing marketing automation is to increase revenue.

When Paper Style , an invite and stationery specialist used a marketing automation campaign that targeted brides, brides to be, and fries of the brides based on how they acted on the website and responded to emails; they were able to increase their revenue by 330% . Whereoware used a marketing automation software ensured that users got timely offers that were most relevant to them depending on their role in the wedding party.

While automation ensures that a visitor is targeted properly with the right offer automatically to increase conversions,
personalization ensures that every offer that is presented to a visitor is tailored to their specific needs.

#4 Personalization

Personalizing your marketing funnel gives you an edge and allows you to cultivate relationships with your leads and customers. What better way to make an impression on prospects and customers than by tailoring every offer you show them, specifically to them.

The basics of personalization start with:

• Addressing the lead or customer by name in emails and other marketing offers
• Targeting content for them based on their personas and geographical locations
• Maintaining an ongoing conversation with your prospect or customers through various marketing materials

Here’s what on-site personalization looks like on Bunting. Visitor one is female, who is browsing the e-commerce site in June or July. Visitor two is male from the UK who has browsed Nixon watches before but hasn’t purchased anything yet. Essentially, the two visitors will view two different websites, and are going through two different user experience's.

Personalized emails, segmented content, and automated behavioral-triggered emails are the future of conversion rate optimization. To demonstrate, when the British-based luxury jeweler Astley Clarke personalized the online shopping experience for visitors they were able to increase their online conversions by 60%!

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How Much Should You Allocate For Your Marketing Budget in 2018?

chrismoakler@gmail.com (eMacity Leads) — Fri, 20 Jul 2018 14:01:42 GMT

To answer that question, this report from CMO Survey conducted by Deloitte might offer some good insights.

According to the report, 6.9% is the average percentage of marketing budget against revenue in 2017. Below is a breakdown by B2B vs. B2C, as well as product vs. service.

Category	Marketing Budget / Revenue
Overall	6.90%
B2B Product	6.40%
B2B Services	6.80%
B2C Product	8.60%
B2C Services	7.30%

The following tables show the average percentage of marketing budgets broken down by industry category and revenue size:

Industry Category	Marketing Budget / Revenue
Banking / Finance / Insurance	3.90%
Communication / Media	6.60%
Consumer Packaged Goods	11.00%
Consumer Services	17.40%
Education	18.50%
Energy	2.20%
Healthcare	6.20%
Manufacturing	3.20%
Mining / Construction	2.00%
Service Consulting	9.40%
Retail / Wholesale	3.80%
Tech/Software/Biotech	8.50%
Transportation	11.20%

Revenue Size Category	Marketing Budget / Revenue
< $25 MILLION	12.20%
$26 – 99 MILLION	7.00%
$100 – 499 MILLION	5.90%
$500 – 999 MILLION	3.40%
$1 – 9.9 BILLION	6.00%
> $10 BILLION	9.70%

Source: CMO.Deloitte

As you can see, organizations with a lower revenue size are willing to spend more of their budget on marketing in order to grow. Of course, those are just moderate averages and you don’t have to follow these numbers. There are always exceptions: when you take a look at a rapid growing software company like Salesforce, the marketing & sales spend accounts for nearly 45 – 50% of their revenue , so it’s dependent on your strategy.

You may be wondering where the increased marketing spends have gone. The answer is digital – you can see the trend chart below:

Digital marketing has continued to grow through 2018. Global digital ad spends are projected to increase by 17.4 percent to $583.91 billion according to CNBC . This is a bit surprising given P&G and other organizations are concerned about affecting brand safety by placing digital ads. P&G said they were planning to decrease their budget for digital ads since digital ads are unclear in terms of placement and can potentially be placed next to extremist content.

What are key drivers for the growth? As mentioned in 20 Marketing Statistics & 5 Trends To Implement In 2018 , a combination of digital video and mobile will be key drivers for growth in digital marketing spends.

Google and Facebook are leading the rapid growth. Google accounts for 33% of the total net digital ad revenue share worldwide and Facebook accounts for 16.2% in 2017.

Source: eMarketer

In terms of which advertising channels marketers have invested in throughout 2017, social ads hold the highest growth at 72% according to a survey conducted by Hanapin Marketing .

Source: Hanapin Marketing

Hanapin Marketing asked the same marketers how their budgets will change in next 12 months. Google Adwords, Facebook and Mobile are the major mediums where marketers will be increasingly invest their budgets.

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Technology Startups: United States vs China

chrismoakler@gmail.com (eMacity Leads) — Mon, 25 Jun 2018 13:14:26 GMT

Back in the 90's, large tech giants like Microsoft would ruthlessly dominate markets by "embracing, extending, and extinguishing" new competitors. Microsoft would slowly release new features built on top of open-source or free frameworks until Microsoft-owned software became industry standard. The company would then cut out competitors from using their patented add-ons.

Excel originally launched to take out IBM's Lotus 1-2-3, one of the most successful spreadsheet applications of the time. Microsoft slowly released new proprietary features – a word processor (Word), a presentation tool (PowerPoint), and powerful macro tools. Lotus was slowly edged out of the market until it shut down in 2002.

Google, Facebook, and Amazon continue to make it difficult for upstarts to compete. When Snap turned down Facebook’s $3B acquisition offer, Instagram shamelessly copied Snapchat Stories. When Twitter acquired and integrated Periscope, it all but killed live-streaming app Meerkat.

Facebook, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft spent $31B scooping up companies in 2017. The flood of acquisition activity has probably changed incentives for startups— instead of working on the sorts of groundbreaking ideas that made the Bay Area the center of the tech world, they’re instead building towards being acquired by the Big 5..

Chinese startups aren’t having the same problem...

Chinese billion-dollar unicorns outnumber their American counterparts 162 to 132, and Chinese decacorns ($10B+ in valuation) outnumber their American counterparts 11 to 6. Chinese startups accounted for half of 2017's ten largest fundraising rounds, with Uber competitor Didi's massive $5.5B round on top. The average Series A startup in China last year raised $32.8M, more than 3x the number stateside.

This is no mistake. American tech companies struggle to compete with China's protectionist business policies. Founders in China develop homegrown copycats of every major Silicon Valley success: Baidu instead of Google, Sina Weibo instead of Twitter, Didi instead of Uber.

(Interesting: India faces the opposite problem. American tech firms are given free reign, which has limited local innovation.)

... and they're not just copying US tech companies either.

Chinese robotics and AI firms are becoming industry leaders, and companies like Alibaba and JD.com are setting their sights on the American market. There’s a reason that Peter Thiel’s Zero to One (translated into Mandarin) was one of the bestselling books in China.

There are a number of drivers behind their success:

Work ethic. Their engineers work “9-9-6”: 9AM to 9PM, 6 days a week. The mere mention of this in SF would have people running for the exit.
State support. The Chinese government is often the first investor and biggest proponent of new firms and startups.
Greater supply of STEM workers. China has 4x the population as the US, but 10x the tech employees.
Local factories and deep manufacturing expertise. As US startups steer away from hardware, Chinese startups have easy access to the biggest manufacturers in the world.

Only time will tell how many US tech startups cede to their China counterparts. One thing is clear: The Chinese tech scene is hell-bent on success. Silicon Valley could learn a few things by looking east.

eMacity Leads

www.emacityleads.com

How to convert more TRIAL users to PAID with better onboarding

Mon, 07 May 2018 16:43:04 GMT

Most of the founders that we spoke to after told us: "This looks awesome, but how can this help with high ticket Enterprise sales?"

These folks sell products from $500 to $5000 a month (and higher) and some of the challenges they have are:

1. Long sales cycles (up to a year or longer).

2. Improving the sales cycle without changing their entire sales process or retraining their sales team.

3. Losing good salespeople OR difficulty hiring dependable sales people (these founders end up doing all the sales themselves.

4. What to do with the 40%-60% of leads that request a demo and never show up, or the leads that disappear AFTER the demo.

5. Qualified leads that visit the site (or landing page) but leave without requesting a demo.

6. Wasting months trying to sell to unqualified prospects.

Want to learn more? Email: info@emacityleads.com

6 Reasons Why You Need To Be Embracing Technology!!!

chrismoakler@gmail.com (eMacity Leads) — Tue, 06 Mar 2018 00:00:00 GMT

1. Artificial Intelligence is a Friend, not a Foe

(AI) is now accessible to even the smallest of businesses through third-party tools. In 2018, more small business owners will embrace AI as an important competitive tool, using it to automate mundane administrative tasks, unlock customer insights, and much more .

2. Fluid Workforces are on the rise

Today, 42 percent of employer small businesses already use contract workers, and you can expect this number rise in 2018. The rapid rise of the contingent workforce of freelancers and other on-demand talent is making a big splash in the small business world. Increasingly, small business owners are turning to on-demand workers instead of hiring full-time employees to handle project needs because of the incredible flexibility it affords.

3. SMBs Really Embrace High-Tech.

IDC forecasts that small and medium-sized businesses are going to spend $668 billion on IT products and services in 2020 as compared to $564 billion last year, outpacing the growth of the overall IT market. Keeping up with the changes in technology is essential for SMBs; keep an eye out for new opportunities; your competitors are!

4. Millennials—Untapped Potential

A recent study by Nielsen reveals that there are 75 million Millennials living in the U.S. and that 42 percent of them are multicultural: These young people are highly educated and extremely influential—inspiring new trends in culture, food and technology—among their peers, their children and parents. In fact, according to Nielsen, multicultural Millennials spend more than $65 billion each year, influencing potentially $1 trillion in consumer spending.

5. Niche Markets Rule

Millennials in particular, with $200 billion in annual buying power, are passionate about their niche brands, driving the growth of things like microbrew beer and artisan coffee over the big names that have dominated for decades.

6. Digital Payments

Our transition to becoming a cashless society has been underway for decades, with smartphone-based payment systems only hastening the trend that started with credit cards in the 1960s.

If you feel that you’re falling behind, or might want to try something new?

Tell us your story!

Panda, Penguin, Pigeon, Hummingbird ... These are a few of Google’s ongoing algorithms.

chrismoakler@gmail.com (eMacity Leads) — Mon, 05 Feb 2018 00:00:00 GMT

You can think of them as the ‘recipes’ Google uses to sort through the billions of web pages and other information it has, in order to return the best results. While it may be confusing to some, our job is to know firmly what this all means. It is our commitment to you as a client.

1. Panda

Launch date: February 24, 2011
Hazards: Duplicate, plagiarized or thin content; user-generated spam; keyword stuffing

2. Penguin

Launch date: April 24, 2012
Hazards: Spammy or irrelevant links; links with over-optimized anchor text

3. Hummingbird

Launch date: August 22, 2013
Hazards: Keyword stuffing; low-quality content

4. Pigeon

Launch date: July 24, 2014 (US); December 22, 2014 (UK, Canada, Australia)
Hazards: Poor on- and off-page SEO

5. Mobile

Launch date: April 21, 2015
Hazards: Lack of a mobile version of the page; poor mobile usability

6. RankBrain

Launch date: October 26, 2015
Hazards: Lack of query-specific relevance features; shallow content; poor UX

7. Possum

Launch date: September 1, 2016
Hazards: Tense competition in your target location

8. Fred

Launch date: March 8, 2017
Hazards: Thin, affiliate-heavy or ad-centered content

There have been some major changes in the way Google 'grades' your website. The search giant is committed to only presenting the most ‘relevant and authoritative' results for their engine. It's now paramount to work within their new quality guidelines; and the road to better traffic goes through with ‘engaging, high quality content.’

Search engines measure the relative ‘value’ of each website – and each page of each website – by means of the quality and quantity of inbound links it receives. If a number of the ‘right’ links reference your site, your page rankings will rise.

To keep abreast of all these changes, we have some amazing tools to identify the best possible placements to achieve your online goals.

Email us when you have some time to discuss briefly about how we are going to improve your presence online.

7 Technologies that are Transforming the Customer Experience Landscape

chrismoakler@gmail.com (eMacity Leads) — Tue, 02 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

On our hyper-competitive landscape where today’s media darling is tomorrow’s one-hit wonder (Crocs anyone? How about TiVo or Boston Market?), the importance of delivering positive customer experiences — and sustaining this momentum over the long-term — is not just a question of success: it is a matter of survival. Indeed, research groups like Walker Information predict that by the year 2020, customer experience will surpass price and product as the single most influential brand differentiater.

Of course, there are many pieces to the customer experience puzzle — including what is always at the top of the list when it comes to business investments: technology, technology and more technology. With this in mind, here are seven innovative technologies that are transforming the customer experience landscape, and winning over hearts, heads and budgets:

1. Marketing automation platforms

Whether the label says HubSpot, Marketo, InfusionSoft or any other credible vendor, marketing automation is not just the biggest gift to marketing teams since email: it is also a total win for prospective and existing customers, who don’t have to wait around for hours, days or sometimes weeks to get their hands on assets and content like ebooks, reports, white papers, videos, and so on.

2. Customer analytics platforms

One of the first things that businesses discover when they implement a customer analytics platform, is that they don’t have customers: they have multiple buyer personas, who act and behave in ways that are surprisingly predictable based on demographic and psychographic factors, along with other variables (e.g. deal size, deal stage, etc.). All of this intelligence can be leveraged to increase revenues and profits, which at the end of the day, is what it’s all about.

3. Mobile Point-of-Sale

Standing in line at retail checkouts waiting for a cashier to manually usher people through payment and out the door is over. What’s replacing this historic frustration is mobile point-of-sale technology, which allows retail staff to engage customers anywhere in the store to seal the deal on everything from home improvement supplies, to drug store items .

4. Business VoIP

Wait: I know what you’re thinking, and your traumatic memories of circa 2007 Skype calls — or more precisely, terrible call quality and dropped calls — is no longer valid. Today’s business VoIP systems are fast, clear, have 99.99% uptime (often staying online even as conventional landline systems shut down), and most importantly for the purposes of customer experience: they come with features to help route calls to the right people, which minimizes two things customers hate: getting funneled to voicemail, and getting stuck on hold for several minutes and being told that “their call is very important.”

5. Chatbots

In the old days — so we’re talking anything before 2014 or so — chatbots were pretty basic and riddled with bugs. Besides, customers could usually tell within seconds that they were interacting with a robot, and didn’t find the engagement all that, well, engaging. However, things are dramatically different now. AI, machine learning and big data analytics have all jumped in the chatbox sandbox, and the result is a technology that will doubtlessly be standard operating procedure for all companies within the next 10 years.

6. IoT Devices

The glory of IoT on the customer experience journey isn’t necessarily something that customers see: it’s what they don’t see, such as bugs and repairs happening behind the scenes, and which avoid the need to get help in the first place. At the same time, IoT generates an unprecedented amount of granular customer and product data, which businesses (and especially marketers) are joyfully embracing to better understand who they need to reach, why, when, how and where.

7. Collaborative Workforce Management

Collaboration workforce management (CWM) platforms blend project management software with collaboration apps and time/expense tools. While on-premises installations are relatively more secure and give enterprises more control, a growing number are tapping cloud-based solutions to bring together remote teams, continue the work journey between devices, and of course, cut down on CapEx costs since all they need are login credentials to get going.

The Bottom Line

The above innovations will certainly play starring roles in the story of customer experience over at least the next decade, and determine which businesses triumph and lead — and which ones struggle and fall behind.

6 Awesome Lead Generation Techniques That Work

chrismoakler@gmail.com (eMacity Leads) — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 09:22:51 GMT

In marketing, lead generation is the initiation of consumer interest or inquiry into products or services of a business. Leads can be created for purposes such as list building, e-newsletter list acquisition or for sales leads.

“Running out of leads”- is a common complaint which a majority of sales reps raise in their organizations. Only salesmen understand the true joy of having a solid lead in hand. Lead generation has been in the sales business since the beginning of trade. Merchants used to travel far and wide to meet their potential clients for the purpose of business just on the hopes of hints and references. But today Lead generation itself has turned to become a huge business segment in the current corporate world.

In simple words, Lead generation can be defined as the process of raising buyer interest and generating inquiries from prospective clients, often in the form of name and contact information. These leads are then analyzed and sorted for their ability to make the purchase of the product or service. 74% of marketers spend more than $50 on each lead generated, with 5% spending over $1,000(Mintigo). Hence for marketers, leads are a stand-off between quality and quantity. The leads generated should be of enough quality and quantity that the sales team can use it for attaining customers and finally generating revenue.

LEAD GENERATION IN THE MODERN WORLD

According to Hubspot’s State Of Inbound Report, Generating leads has been found to be one of the major challenges faced by most marketers. This has resulted in marketers being on a continual search for newer lead generation tactics. Unlike the traditional models which marketers used for generating leads, the modern techniques and tools are mostly online but the fundamental idea of demonstrating expertise and building relationships remain the same. But what marketers have to keep in mind is that how you use a Lead Generation channel is more important than what lead channel you use.

There are different opinions regarding which method is the best. According to Hubspot’s study of B2B lead sources, SEO is the most suitable Lead Generation channel while according to Chief Marketer’s data E-mail marketing is the best technique. There are other surveys which say that Social media and content are the most important platforms for Lead Generation.

THE ONLINE LEAD GENERATION STRATEGIES THAT CONSISTENTLY COME ON THE TOP ARE:

#1 (E-MAIL MARKETING)

“ 92% of digitally literate adults use email, with 61% using it on an average day.” – Pew Research

Even though it has been 23 years since e-mail was introduced, it’s still one of the few marketing channels that have stood the test of time and stays on the top of many marketers’ lists of B2B lead generation strategies. Even email marketing has changed a lot through the process of automation. Marketing automation tools are hybrid tools that can be connected with the CRM that enable the marketers to send highly targeted e-mails and then nurture them accordingly for generating revenue.

#2 (SEARCH MARKETING)

Organic Search Marketing is one of the most important long term Lead Generation strategies in the current business world. Today the chances of a prospective client searching for a query regarding a service or product in Google are really high. A Search Engine Watch survey suggests, Eighty-five percent of retailers surveyed said search marketing (including paid and SEO) was the most effective customer acquisition tactic. Thus, Search Engine Optimization can provide tools to marketers which they can use to match qualified clients with their online content.

#3 (LEAD MAGNETS)

Lead Magnets can prove highly useful to marketers in Lead Generation. Lead magnet in general means content given away to someone in exchange for their e-mail address.Training video series,Surveys, Free trial, Webinars, eBooks, White papers are some of the common Lead Magnets.

Nearly every website or company with an e-mail list uses lead magnets for Lead Generation. In Today’s world, people’s inboxes are so submerged in emails, newsletters and offer advertisements that the lead magnet must be truly stellar to get people to add one more to their inbox. Simply inviting people to sign up for your list is not enough to achieve better results. Lead Magnet works on the concept that something of value must be given in order to receive something of value – here it refers to customer’s details.

Source: www.semrush.com

#4 (WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION)

Most websites are designed in the form of a Jargon filled, firm- centric manner, instead of the intent of generating leads. If the visitors do not understand the services provided or the problems that can be solved with the services, they will go elsewhere. Marketers & designers should optimize the website in a manner that attracts visitors to respond to the website in a positive way.

Adding personalized CTA-tools, Landing pages, Thank You pages, doing enough A/B tests etc are some of the ways to increase Lead Generation through Websites.

#5 (SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING)

There are different opinions in regards to how Social Media Marketing helps in Lead Generation. There are many reports which say that Social Media channels are the least effective Lead Generation mediums. But there are marketers who argue that it’s because most companies have ill-fitting social media strategies. It’s the quality and reach of the networking you do that matters in social media. The style of interaction varies greatly from Twitter to LinkedIn to Facebook, so it is about making the right connections with the right people.

Identifying the Social Media Marketing KPIs to Track Success for effective Lead Generation.

Awareness: How far your brand’s messaging could spread
Acquisition: The growth of your online community
Activation: How successfully you are engaging with your community
Satisfaction: How your audience feels about your brand

Social Media Marketing can produce the reputation and referrals even associated with traditional business networking.

#6 (CONTENT MARKETING)

No matter on what your business is based, Content is still the King. Blogging is one of the primary avenues through which B2C and B2B marketers drive Lead Generation. Blogs actually do not generate a lot of direct leads but it is the most effective driver of leads to websites. This is mainly because, blogs allow creating a wide range of keyword laden content that can be found in the search engines and draw qualified prospects to your website.

The most important thing while using content whether it’s in the form of microsites, blogging, research reports, or infographics is to test what does and doesn’t work so that you can gradually refine your lead generation over time.

FINAL STEP OF LEAD GENERATION – MERGING ALL IN THE RIGHT PROPORTIONS

Marketing sometimes can turn out to be a long process. Integrating all the above mentioned techniques in the most proper way can build Lead Generation in an effective manner which is the ultimate goal of every marketer. But only the willingness to experiment with the tactics and trying to combine the techniques accordingly for the campaigns across various channels can result in perfect lead Generation.

emacityleads_old

6 Ways To Address COVID-19 Churn in the Software as a Service Industry.

SaaS Companies Cannot Be Evaluated By Traditional Performance Metrics.

Cost Per Acquisition

Overview

Goals

Observation

1. Inside Sales: SQL (CPA Lead: $5.82 / CPA Sale: $178.78)

2. Sales Development: SQL (CPA Lead: $2.91 / CPA: Sale: UNQUALIFIED)

3. Account Management: SQL (Increases LTV-Lifetime Value: CPA: UNQUALIFIED)

4. Field Sales: SQL (CPA Lead: $16.82 / CPA: Sale: $528.58)

5. Sales Support: SQL (Reduces Churn Rate % / CPA: UNQUALIFIED)

6. Inbound Marketing: MQL (CPA Lead: ____ / CPA: Sale: ____)

7. Marketing Automation (Eliminates Repetitive Tasks / CPA: UNQUALIFIED)

Like this Post? For more information contact: info@emacityleads.com

What is Marketing Automation and How Does It Help?

Marketing automation is the process of using software to complete repetitive marketing tasks designed to nurture sales leads, personalize marketing messages and content and in the process, save marketers’ time and effort.

How Marketing Automation Works

Marketing Automation Components

Marketing Automation Features

Good vs. Bad Marketing Automation

Marketing Automation vs. CRM

What is Enterprise Marketing Automation?

Four Marketing Automation Trends to Watch in 2019

Like this Post? For more information contact: info@emacityleads.com

4 Notable Conversion Rate Optimization Trends

What will be the latest new trends shaping the success of CRO? What new tools or services will appear? Will CRO start to approach the popularity of web analytics or SEO?

#1 Increase in Sticky Website Elements

#2 Increase in Video Marketing

#3 Marketing Automation

#4 Personalization

How Much Should You Allocate For Your Marketing Budget in 2018?

To answer that question, this report from CMO Survey conducted by Deloitte might offer some good insights.

Technology Startups: United States vs China

How to convert more TRIAL users to PAID with better onboarding

Most of the founders that we spoke to after told us: "This looks awesome, but how can this help with high ticket Enterprise sales?"

These folks sell products from $500 to $5000 a month (and higher) and some of the challenges they have are:

1. Long sales cycles (up to a year or longer).

2. Improving the sales cycle without changing their entire sales process or retraining their sales team.

3. Losing good salespeople OR difficulty hiring dependable sales people (these founders end up doing all the sales themselves.

4. What to do with the 40%-60% of leads that request a demo and never show up, or the leads that disappear AFTER the demo.

5. Qualified leads that visit the site (or landing page) but leave without requesting a demo.

6. Wasting months trying to sell to unqualified prospects.

Want to learn more? Email: info@emacityleads.com

6 Reasons Why You Need To Be Embracing Technology!!!

Panda, Penguin, Pigeon, Hummingbird ... These are a few of Google’s ongoing algorithms.

You can think of them as the ‘recipes’ Google uses to sort through the billions of web pages and other information it has, in order to return the best results. While it may be confusing to some, our job is to know firmly what this all means. It is our commitment to you as a client.

7 Technologies that are Transforming the Customer Experience Landscape

6 Awesome Lead Generation Techniques That Work

In marketing, lead generation is the initiation of consumer interest or inquiry into products or services of a business. Leads can be created for purposes such as list building, e-newsletter list acquisition or for sales leads.

6. Inbound Marketing: MQL (CPA Lead: / CPA: Sale: )