How well do your marketing metrics aid your sales process?
In far too many instances, they don’t. That’s because many of the marketing KPIs that suppliers typically rely on tend to focus on outcomes around a single campaign, whether it be email clicks or the number of new names scanned after exhibiting at a trade show.
Although tracking outcomes this way can give valuable insight into the performance of a particular campaign, they can do only so much to inform the sales process, as the marketer has limited ability to recognize the quality of the interaction.
So, what is a more meaningful metric to track? Signals of intent.
Importance of tracking intent signals
Packaging has notoriously long sales cycles, with 49% of machinery buyers beginning their research at least six months to a year or more before their project is funded, according to PMMI Media Group’s Machinery End User Buying Process and Perspective Report. This period of research and consideration is when suppliers are most likely to get on the buyer’s radar, but it’s also a time when most buyers prefer to remain anonymous. As such, many instances of a prospect’s interest will go unnoticed, occurring long before an official hand-raise seeking product information.
Now imagine the power a marketer can have once they are able to look across the multiple intent data sources associated with their efforts. Consider what is more valuable: someone who clicked on an email, or someone who not only clicked on an email but also downloaded a white paper, visited your booth, and attended a webinar you hosted? Suddenly, you begin to see the latter prospect has far greater value, as an uptick in engagement is more likely to occur when someone may be coming into market.
When you can gather intelligence from multiple intent data sources this way, it becomes far easier to drive value from your marketing efforts. Armed with such data, many marketers discover:
- Easier identification of potential in-market buyers
- Ability to set up trigger actions based on lead scoring (number and/or frequency of intent signals) that can accelerate pipeline
- More effective account prioritization that increases sales rep productivity
If this sounds like the promises you’ve heard around marketing automation, that’s because they largely are. The problem, however, is that many OEMs are unable to invest in such high-priced technologies. Of 134 packaging suppliers surveyed by PMMI Media Group in 2019, 51% reported no plans for marketing automation adoption, according to our Packaging Supplier Marketing Trends and Best Practices report.
Or, the technologies are so complex to manage that benefits remain largely unrealized. The same survey showed half of marketing automation users were still implementing their systems, 23% didn’t feel like they were making use of the technology’s full capabilities, and 14% were outright dissatisfied with their solution’s performance.
To access PMMMI Media Group’s Machinery End User Buying Process and Perspective Report, visit: pmmimediagroupresearch.com
A new approach for OEMs
Recognizing the industry’s need for better data access, PMMI Media Group is beta-launching a tool for OEMs called Converge, which will be free to PMMI Media Group advertisers. Using Converge, suppliers will be able to track multiple lead touches from any campaigns they run with PMMI Media Group, booth scans from PACK EXPO, as well as any other campaign activities they choose to upload—including campaigns run with other publishers or booth leads acquired at other shows. (All of the supplier’s lead data will be walled off from the PMMI Media Group database).
At the same time, PMMI is beta-launching a companion technology called Scout, which is a simple script that you can add to your website. Scout is designed to constantly “listen” to your traffic. When it detects a visitor from a PMMI Media Group campaign, it snaps to attention, logging which pages on your site that person visited. It then displays the entire sequence in Converge, whether it’s one visit or a dozen spread out over weeks or months. So not only will you be able to tell who clicked through to your website, you can tell what they did once they got there, and how many pages of content they consumed, or which videos on your website they watched.
PMMI Media Group has been working on these proprietary technologies for several years and is ready to beta test them. And unlike marketing automation software, there is no configuration or setup, aside from dropping a line of code on your website.
With Converge’s simple interface, OEMs can view which prospects are engaging the most with their advertising campaigns across multiple campaigns over time—and thus start harnessing the power of intent signals.
For more information on Converge, contact Wendy Sawtell, VP Sales, PMMI Media Group at: wsawtell@pmmimediagroup.com
