How to Increase Customer Engagement Across the Buyer Journey

In Philosophy 101 we learn that logical argumentation can only be possible if all terms of the argument are properly defined. Before you even begin an argument, you must first define what your words in that argument actually mean. Similarly, before you make an argument about how to increase customer engagement, you must first define the metrics by which you measure “engagement.”

comprehension

There are a million ways to measure engagement—whether it’s opening an email, clicking “like” on a blog post, or visiting a website multiple times. But why measure something that doesn’t actually matter to the end result?

Although we like to forget it sometimes, the goal of every single department is to increase revenue. Whether this be by creating marketing campaigns, increasing productivity with new technology, or literally making a sale, every department has the same end goal: improving the company. Often, this end goal is pushed aside in Marketing because the buyer’s journey between Marketing and Sales is not properly tracked. If the goal, however, is to have Marketing efforts lead to increased revenue, then the best way to value customer engagement is through following which marketing efforts actually end up in a customer making a purchase.

Creating continuity between Marketing and Sales is the first step. Figure out which touchpoints actually lead to customers purchasing your product, and then increase your production of similar content. This can be as simple as measuring when 20-25 year old women interact with your brand, and of those, which make a purchase. Extrapolate the data for the 20-25 year old women who make purchases and find out where they were interacting with your brand. This information will tell you which pieces of content are correlated with making sales.

Armed with data to improve relevance, performance, and sales, you should be able to effectively segment and target audiences via content that often results in purchases. A relevance engine (like MobilePaks) can tee up content based on industry, company size, sales stage, and product interest, so that all that’s left for you to do is actually write the content.

To increase your customers’ engagement across the buyer’s journey MobilePaks closes the gap between Sales and Marketing to determine which pieces of content to show whom and when, for maximum results. Through ratings and feedback, the MobilePaks platform shows which content you should deliver to drive your customers through the buying journey and towards your ultimate goal: a happy and loyal customer.

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Sales & Marketing Management Magazine Features CEO, Chanin Ballance, on Ending the Sales and Marketing Tug-of-War

The leading authority for executives in the sales and marketing field, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine has featured a new article by Chanin Ballance, “End Your Sales and Marketing Tug-of-War”.

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“Although sales and marketing are often working toward a common goal (increased sales), in many organizations they are not necessarily partnering together to achieve these results. On one hand marketing is working hard to define the company’s core messaging and increase demand generation, while on the other hand sales is striving to close deals. Though these initiatives are well intentioned, they are not always as effective as they could be. So, how can companies get the results they are looking for? According to Demand Metric 66% of companies reporting complete alignment between sales and marketing achieved their revenue goals compared with 41% who reported no alignment.”

You can read the full article at Sales & Marketing Management Magazine.

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Content ROI: The Gold at the End of the Rainbow

Understanding and measuring the effectiveness of content has long been a pain point for both Sales and Marketing. Because there’s not a 1:1 relationship between good content production and making a sale, it’s difficult to understand the subtle effect of content. Add to that the fact that only 30% of the content that Marketing teams put together is actually used by Sales, and you’re faced with a time, energy, and money pit.

As Nirmalya Kumar, professor of Marketing at London Business School said, “Branding is not merely about differentiating products; it is about striking emotional chords with consumers. It is about cultivating identity, attachment, and trust to inspire customer loyalty.” However, while this is very true, and ultimately the goal of content marketing is to inspire trust and loyalty, how do you know if you’re doing this successfully?

Content marketing ROI is not just a myth. There are ways to directly test which pieces of content are being used by Sales, and thus which pieces are most commonly linked to a purchase. We came up with three ways to best test your content ROI:

  1. 1. Connect Marketing and Sales It’s the age old question: does a piece of content really exist if nobody reads it? Marketing is coming up with a ton of great content that nobody is seeing because there’s an interdepartmental disconnect. Establish a line of communication wherein Sales tells marketing which pieces of content they’re actually using, so that Marketing can just toss the rest and not waste time on creating unseen pieces of work.
  2. 2. Track Prospects’ Interactions and Views Follow what’s being shown to prospects, what prospects actually look at and interact with, and then, if/when that a prospect becomes a customer, you can see what pieces of content led them to that place. This level of tracking involves integrating a marketing system with your CRM to erase the discontinuity between Marketing and Sales.
  3. 3. Create a Revenue-Value Correlation After you’ve successfully linked your Sales and Marketing tools, it’s time to quantify the information that they’ve jointly yielded. It’s the difference between having data and making decisions based off of it. If a piece of content yields no revenue, then your marketing team should either toss it or have an incredibly compelling reason for keeping it.

MobilePaks gives you visibility into who is consuming what content.

We’ve all heard the phrase “content is king” by now, but what’s a ruler that nobody listens to? We at MobilePaks have seen the lack of visibility that marketers have into what their Sales teams are actually doing, and have created a product to give continuity to content production. Don’t just write; sell.

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CMO Essentials Features Industry Insights by MobilePaks CEO, Chanin Ballance

Dedicated to cultivating the latest marketing best practices, CMO Essentials has published an article by MobilePaks CEO, Chanin Ballance, on “Boosting Marketing Content ROI Through Sales Enablement.”

“According to Aberdeen Group research, 92% of firms say producing high-quality content is valuable, but just 54% say they are effective at executing this activity. Success in content marketing depends on several factors — from producting content in a variety of formats, to distributing content across multiple channels, as well as tracking the impact of these efforts. Clearly, this multifaceted approach isn’t easy, but there are a few ways marketing teams can gain insight into what materials get the most use, find out how to focus their time on what really matters, and help shorten sales cycles by enabling sales reps with relevant information at the right time,” writes Chanin Ballance.  You can read the full article here.

 

 

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Press Release: MobilePaks Raises $2 Million in Seed Funding to Grow Market Leadership, Further Sales and Marketing Product Innovation

Sep. 22, 2014 — PORTLAND, Ore.— MobilePaks, an award-winning cloud-based marketing and sales enablement tool, today announced it has closed a $2 million seed round of funding, led by the Oregon Angel Fund. The investment will be used to expand MobilePaks product innovation, as well as accelerate the market growth of its sales, marketing and channel solutions.

“We are excited to invest in MobilePaks technology as it fills a gap between marketing automation and CRM that is largely manual and riddled with waste today. In doing so, MobilePaks is positioned to help organizations increase sales and marketing productivity and effectiveness,” said Eric Rosenfeld, founder of the Oregon Angel Fund. “At the Oregon Angel Fund, we pride ourselves on finding and investing in Oregon and SW Washington companies that have the potential for venture-scale ROI within a few short years. MobilePaks exudes this capability.”

“Oregon Angel Fund has a strong track record of working with many of the best and most promising Northwest start-ups and we are glad to be in their portfolio,” said Chanin Ballance, MobilePaks CEO. “Our goal at MobilePaks is to fundamentally change how people develop, access andshare knowledge in business today—with an initial focus on sales and marketing productivity, MobilePaks helps companies accelerate revenue while gaining valuable insight to what their employees use and need to be effective.”

Since the launch of its product, MobilePaks has witnessed significant new customer growth, with Cisco, Tripwire, ESI, Skyward International, CEB and other leading companies adopting its solution. In addition, MobilePaks has received industry accolades, including:

    • Horizon Interactive Awards– Silver Level award for “On-Demand Knowledge Sharing and Sales Enablement”
    • Davey Awards–Silver, Mobile Applications
    • Smart Selling Tools–Top 40 Sales Tools of 2014
    • Stevie® Awards for Women in Business, New Company of the Year

About the Oregon Angel Fund (OAF) Founded in 2007, OAF is a community supported, professionally managed, investor driven angel fund backed by the leaders of Oregon’s business and technology community, the Oregon Growth Board, and the Oregon Community Foundation. OAF invests $7 million annually in the most promising startups and early-stage growth companies in Oregon and SW Washington. Over 1,400 jobs have been created by the 36 companies in the portfolio. For more information, please visit: www.OregonAngelFund.com

About MobilePaks MobilePaks helps companies improve sales effectiveness and productivity with scalable products for managing content and support in the way sellers learn, retain and use. MobilePaks’ exclusive Relevance Engine™ automatically recommends pertinent content and support based on the sales stage, prospect type and preferences of sellers and managers. From product updates and competitive intelligence to how-tos, employees can access short bits of knowledge when and where they need it – as well as share approved content with customers. Marketing and Sales leaders glean insights to track behavior, needs and direct feedback for better alignment. MobilePaks solutions are available as stand-alone web applications and can also be integrated with partner portals and CRM systems like Salesforce, Oracle CRM and Microsoft Dynamics, as well as Marketing Automation Systems such as Marketo and Eloqua. For more information, contact MobilePaks at 1-800-737-8481 or visit www.veeloinc.com

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