How to choose the best predictive lead scoring vendor for your company

Generating a bounty of leads doesn't mean your work is done. What's much more important is whether those leads will ultimately convert—and predictive lead scoring is one way B2B marketers can determine if a lead is good or if it belongs on the trash heap.

Predictive intelligence platforms can help B2B marketers prioritize existing prospects or identify unknown prospects through lead scoring. Basically, the technique uses data from both CRM and marketing automation solutions and unites it with data from third-party sources to detect a usable pattern. Lead scoring can boost sales productivity, improve marketing effectiveness and encourage sales/marketing alignment.

"Predictive lead scoring offers a more accurate outcome that B2B marketers and sales reps can rely on and gives you a competitive edge," said Jill Stanek, research analyst for the technology practice at B2B research firm SiriusDecisions.

Predictive lead scoring technology is in its infancy—just a handful of companies offers tools that can be used in the B2B market and the standards for crunching that data are not consistent across the field of providers. But there is a hunger for this capability among B2B marketers. According to SiriusDecisions, there are almost 14 times more B2B organizations with predictive lead scoring today than there were in 2011.

"Using predictive analytics to model the propensity of prospects to buy has been something that's been an important part of B2B marketing for many years now, but we simply didn't have enough data in B2B in prospects and in sales results to take advantage of this [lead scoring] technology," said Kerry Cunningham, research director of demand creation strategies at SiriusDecisions. "But now that we have so much data in B2B, and it's growing all the time, I think the adoption cycle is going to be pretty rapid."

FIRST STEPS

With so few companies offering predictive scoring capabilities, how can B2B marketers go about choosing the right one?

One of the first things to do, Cunningham suggested, is to run trials with several vendors. Have those companies provide you with a set of set of scored leads to test. "There are a couple of ways to do a trial," he said. "One is actually to run a small pilot and test those leads in the field. If you don't have the resources to actually send your salespeople out to try to sell those leads, then at least have salespeople look at them to assess whether or not the leads that this model is saying are good make sense and are leads that they would also agree are good."

Kerry Cunningham

Stanek said the next critical thing to consider is the vendor's design and deployment of a scoring system that has been specifically tailored to your needs. "Some of them actually can do it within twenty-four hours and for some it can take up to four weeks." She also said to make sure to ask if a lead scoring vendor actually sources net new contacts; some vendors only score existing contacts. Securing customer references is also a must.

Another important factor for B2B marketers looking to hire a predictive lead scoring vendor is how well that vendor is able to support delivering the leads in a format and in a way that it's going to work well for the ultimate lead recipient. For example, since predictive lead scoring vendors are ultimately going to be providing sales leads that go to either teleprospectors or salespeople, it's important to understand how the scores will be presented to those folks. What's the format? How much info will they get explaining to them why it's a good lead?

"There's not yet a right answer for what's the best way to present it back or what are the best pieces of information to present back to those teleprospectors or salespeople," Cunningham said, "but for each organization there will be some ways of doing it that are better than others. It's going to be pretty individual to the company, but it's extremely important, maybe more important than how good the model is itself."

To help its clients properly evaluate the lead scoring vendor marketplace, SiriusDecisions recently released a guide detailing the pros and cons of several vendors. The report focused on seven vendors—6Sense, Fliptop, Infer, Lattice, Leadspace, Mintigo and Salesfusion.

Jill Stanek

According to the report, 6Sense may be the platform of choice for high-tech, manufacturing and other B2B enterprises focused on identifying new leads in the early stages of the buying cycle; the company tracks content consumption across thousands of B2B publisher sites, blogs, communities, forums and business directories to help it source leads. In contrast, Fliptop aims its platform at SMBs and larger organizations that use Salesforce.com and examines a company's existing database to identify leads. Infer may also be a good fit for rapidly growing SMBs that require a lead scoring platform that can be easily hooked up to a database of existing prospects.

For B2B marketers with strict security requirements that need multiple scoring models across different business units, or that are focused on account-based marketing, Lattice should be considered. For those organizations, large or small, that leverage multiple buyer personas, have multiple products and need new leads outside an existing database, Leadspace should be on the short list.

If data hygiene is not the best, Mintigo provides data remediation during onboarding; the company also offers insights to marketers interested in using lead scoring to drive content delivery. However, Mintigo requires more work than other similar vendors during initial setup. And, finally, Salesfusion is an affordable option for SMBs that do not currently have a marketing automation platform and are looking for standard marketing automation functionality and predictive lead scoring based on their own data.

Both Stanek and Cunningham emphasized that their recommendations may change due to a vendor landscape that is in flux. For example, since this report was released a few weeks ago, a couple of new vendors are now on the research firm's radar. But change is now here, and both analysts predicted that more and more B2B companies will use predictive lead scoring as new vendors pop up and older ones are acquired by large marketing automation vendors and integrated into their solutions.

"SiriusDecisions estimates that fewer than five hundred B2B organizations are actually using [predictive lead scoring] technology today," Stanek said. "And as a developing market that's rapidly growing, the reality is that not that many companies are actually implementing it. But we definitely estimate significant growth because most organizations that buy predictive lead scoring platforms already have a marketing automation platform in place."

http://www.fiercecmo.com/special-reports/how-choose-best-predictive-lead-scoring-vendor-your-company

Online PR: Should You Pitch or Ignore These 6 HARO Personas?

Ken McGaffin, August 20, 20140 Comments

HARO can be a great way to get coverage and links for your website – but it can also be a huge waste time with no results if you approach it in the wrong way. Understand these six personas and you’ll avoid wasting time and focus on the queries that could give you the media opportunity you’re looking for.

Online PR is an important part of any link-building strategy, but SEOs don’t always have the right skill sets to make it work for them. But one of the great things about HARO is that it can provide a great education at no cost – just dive in and keep at it!

HARO does have quality rules and the sites that pitch must have a certain score on Alexa. And the editors do scan the pitches and do refuse pitches that are not up to scratch.

Sign up at HelpAReporter.com and you’ll get three emails per day featuring queries from journalists who are looking for examples and good quotes to add color to their stories.

Scan through the queries (you’ll get between150 and 200 per day) and you’ll find that they fall into these types of personas.

Persona #1: Top-Notch

The BBC, Washington Post, ABC News, Fast Company, and many other top media outlets regularly pitch queries on HARO. These journalists use HARO to get quotes and add personal stories to their content.

This is one of the great advantages of HARO – it allows anyone who signs up to get access to top journalists.

Of course the payback can be tremendous, however for the top-notch journalists:

• You need to be exactly the type of person they’re looking for
• You’re going to face a lot of competition – lots of other people will be pitching
• You’ve got to have a great story and you’ve got to pitch it well – no mean task

If you can’t fulfill these criteria, then you’ll be wasting your time pitching.

And even if you do have a great story, that doesn’t necessarily, mean you’ll get a link. However, you can improve your chances (see 10 Ways to Increase the Odds of Getting Editorial Links).

Persona #2: General Business Sites

Probably the most common and possibly the most useful of the media outlets you’ll see on HARO. Most have good audiences and require a good standard of writing. These include sites like Open Forum from American Express, Entrepreneur Magazine, and BankRate.com.

Most of your online PR effort on HARO should go into sites like these.

They present a good opportunity because any business can respond, no matter what industry you come from.

The resulting articles are likely to be along the lines of "21 Small Business Owners Share Their Top Tips on…." That means you don’t really have a chance to stand out – the article will not be exclusively about you or your business.

There’s a high probability of getting a link because such sites understand the value exchange – give them a good quote and you get a link in return.

Of course others will see that too, so you’ll have lots of competition.

What is required is:

• Flexibility in being able to see how to make your business relevant to the subject of the article.
• A great sound bite – you need to write something original so that they can simply cut and paste into their article.

Persona #3: Niche Business Sites

These are queries from particular niches – lawyers, psychotherapists, dog trainers, and so on. You really have to be relevant to that niche – trying to twist your story to fit is a waste of time.

If you do fit the bill, you’re likely to get good editorial coverage and a decent link – but you must have a good story to tell.

The disadvantage is that any particular niche is not going to be featured that often and so your opportunities are limited.

Persona #4: Stingy Business Sites

Becoming a writer and posting queries to help you build content for your own site is a legitimate strategy (see Using HARO to Create Fresh, Compelling Content).

However, the value exchange mentioned earlier should be followed – any site that gets a good quote should give a link in return.

But "stingy" sites don’t follow this value exchange. They’re usually attached or related to a commercial business so they’re not strictly a non-partisan media opportunity. They’re often reluctant to give links because they want to sell their own good or services.

So choose very carefully before investing time in making pitches to these sites!

Persona #5: Authors Looking for Material for Future Books

These can be a mixed bunch. You may get some decent writers, with a publishing contract already in place, looking for interesting examples or case studies.

But you may also get a lot of people writing their first e-book who think they can fill it with material from HARO pitches. They still have to meet the Alexa threshold, but it‘s worth checking them out.

Remember:

• the book may never get published
• you’ll wait a long time for your publicity or link
• your contribution may be out of date by the time it’s published
,li>if the book does get published, it might bomb - no fame or fortune for you!

Are you really prepared to take the chance?

Persona #6: Anonymous

You’ll also see queries that give neither the name of the writer nor their targeted publication. For some reason, the publication does not want to tell you who they are.

Perhaps they’ve got a guaranteed spot on Oprah Winfrey and don’t want to be inundated with hundreds of pitches?

Perhaps, but you shouldn’t count on it. Your time could be better spent on other opportunities.

These six personas cover most of the queries you’ll find on HARO. But before pitching, you need to do some further checks.

Simple Checks on Queries That Interest You

When you do find queries that seem to fit the bill, check out:

• Is the site a place where you’d really like to be featured?
• Does the site readily link to sites that are featured in published articles?
• Can you find articles that have already been written by the journalist behind the query?
• Are there other ways to pitch this journalist or media outlet? A guest post or a press release perhaps?

Handling the media is something that won’t come naturally to all SEOs (see Jon Ball on SEW, "The Future of Link Building").

However, if you think you’ve got an aptitude for working with the media, then HARO is a great place to start.

You will get editorial and often that will be accompanied by quality links. But perhaps more importantly you’ll get the opportunity to develop your skills by working with and building contacts within the media – and that could be very valuable indeed.

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2361107/Online-PR-Should-You-Pitch-or-Ignore-These-6-HARO-Personas?utm_term=&utm_content=Online%20PR%3A%20Should%20You%20Pitch%20or%20Ignore%20These%206%20HARO%20Personas%3F&utm_campaign=08%2F20%2F14%20-%20SEW%20Daily&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Daily

I Am Brand, Hear Me Roar: 5 Tips to Help Your Company Find its Sound

I Am Brand, Hear Me Roar: 

5 Tips to Help Your Company Find its Sound
1. CONGRUENCY
2. DISTINCTIVENESS
3. RECOGNIZABILITY
4. FLEXIBILITY

5. LIKE-ABILITY


Your brand just hired 20 cubicles worth of writers to concoct snappy statuses and Twitter witticisms, and there’s no doubt your brand has a “voice” on the page.


But what does your brand actually sound like?


According to Fast Company, 83 percent of the branded content we’re exposed to daily is visual, leaving 17 percent for the other five senses. Instead of looking at this 17 percent as the black sheep of branding, brands should see it as an untapped opportunity to make a crucial impact on how consumers recall a product and maintain trust.


A branded sound isn’t necessarily a jingle or a hummable tune; it can be any kind of audible signal that you associate with your consumer experience. You are probably addicted to some of them without even realizing it—the Facebook chat chime, for example. Check out this YouTube playlist to hear what other sounds brands have you hooked on.


The best fictional example of sound branding just occurred to me after watching Spielberg’s Close Encounters of The Third Kind. Aliens brand this certain pentatonic melody by transmitting it to humans via some UFO intercom during their cardinal visit to Earth. The melody becomes a way for people to recognize and communicate with the extraterrestrials.


Down on earth, brands can have close encounters with their consumers by prioritizing audio marketing and integrating this into their visual strategy. This is because sound is a strong memory trigger. Hearing sound is closely associated with strong emotions because music activates the entire limbic system, which is involved in processing emotions and in controlling memory.


I spoke with Steve Keller, CEO/Strategist at iV Audio Branding, and a maestro when it comes to amplifying companies’ muted marketing strategies. His company has worked with some big-name clients such as Coca-Cola and McDonalds, which have some of the most recognizable branded sounds out there. (Full Disclosure: Coca-Cola is a Contently client.)


In order for a consumer to recall your brand when a sound is played, Kelley outlines several factors that must be in effect:


Or how well the sound fits with corporate identity. Who your brand is trying to reach and what it’s trying to say will dictate whether you want to drop a fresh beat or sample a symphony.


Keller points out, “Everything has a ukulele and finger snaps, and it’s kind of developed this trend. The goal is to find something distinct enough that it rises in the category but also cuts through the clutter.”


“You want to recognize a brand when you hear a sound, that’s a matter of time… a classic conditioning,” Keller advises. “McDonalds and Intel have been really effective with that. T-Mobile and Coca-Cola as well.”


“How easily you can adapt the audio signature,” Keller explains. “That’s important because brands grow and evolve. As the brand expands you’ll need to do some cultural adaptations. No matter how it’s interpreted, no matter where you are in the world, you recognize that.”


[Kelley sings the six-tone tune: ba-da-bap-bap-bah] “It’s McDonalds.”


Is the sound’s overall awesomeness enough to make it memorable to a sizable demographic? Does it have that sonic X-factor? Kelly says this is hard to pinpoint but it’s the kind of thing that you know once you hear it.


Market research has already proven what proper sound identity can do to boost sales. According to independent research conducted by Dr. Adrian North and Dr. Hargreaves at Leicester University, “Brands with music that fit their identity are 96 percent more likely to be recalled than those with non-fit music or no music at all.” In this experiment, when North and Hargreaves played French music in a wine shop, French wine outsold German ones, whereas playing German music led to the opposite effect on sales of French wine. They ultimately calculated,“Respondents are 24 percent more likely to buy a product with music that they recall, like, and understand.”


Keller adds that the real ROI isn’t necessarily reaped from the short-term effects of spending more on sound in advertising: “It’s about creating assets that can generate true value. The ROI comes at a sweet spot when you’re engaging consumers that are nailing the brand identity, and are producing revenue through copyright or over time…that McDonalds jingle is worth millions now.”


Now do you hear that? It’s the winds of change rustling your content marketing strategy. Soon you’ll be carrying your own tune, perhaps whislin’ “Dixie.”


Contently arms brands with the tools and talent to become great content creators.Learn more.


http://contently.com/strategist/2014/07/24/i-am-brand-hear-me-roar-5-tips-to-help-your-company-find-its-sound/

UI, UX: Who Does What? A Designer's Guide To The Tech Industry

PLUS: HOW APPLE, FACEBOOK, GOOGLE, AND MORE TECH-WORLD HEAVYWEIGHTS DESCRIBE THEIR DESIGN JOBS.

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Design is a rather broad and vague term. When someone says "I'm a designer," it is not immediately clear what they actually do day to day. There are a number of different responsibilities encompassed by the umbrella term designer.

A GIVEN DESIGN PROBLEM HAS NO SINGLE RIGHT ANSWER.

Design-related roles exist in a range of areas from industrial design (cars, furniture) to print (magazines, other publications) to tech (websites, mobile apps). With the relatively recent influx of tech companies focused on creating interfaces for screens, many new design roles have emerged. Job titles like UX or UI designer are confusing to the uninitiated and unfamiliar even to designers who come from other industries.

Let's attempt to distill what each of these titles really mean within the context of the tech industry.

UX DESIGNER (USER EXPERIENCE DESIGNER)

UX designers are primarily concerned with how the product feels. A given design problem has no single right answer. UX designers explore many different approaches to solving a specific user problem. The broad responsibility of a UX designer is to ensure that the product logically flows from one step to the next. One way that a UX designer might do this is by conducting in-person user tests to observe one's behavior. By identifying verbal and non-verbal stumbling blocks, they refine and iterate to create the "best" user experience. An example project is creating a delightful onboarding flow for a new user.

"Define interaction models, user task flows, and UI specifications. Communicate scenarios, end-to-end experiences, interaction models, and screen designs to stakeholders. Work with our creative director and visual designers to incorporate the visual identity of Twitter into features. Develop and maintain design wireframes, mockups, and specifications as needed."

-Experience Designer job description at Twitter

Example of an app's screens created by a UX designer.Credit: Kitchenware Pro Wireframe Kit by Neway Lau on Dribbble.

Deliverables: Wireframes of screens, Storyboards, Sitemap

Tools of the trade: Photoshop, Sketch, Illustrator, Fireworks, InVision

You might hear them say this in the wild: "We should show users the 'Thank You' page once they have finished signing up."

UI DESIGNER (USER INTERFACE DESIGNER)

Unlike UX designers who are concerned with the overall feel of the product, user interface designers are particular about how the product is laid out. They are in charge of designing each screen or page with which a user interacts and ensuring that the UI visually communicates the path that a UX designer has laid out. For example, a UI designer creating an analytics dashboard might front load the most important content at the top, or decide whether a slider or a control knob makes the most intuitive sense to adjust a graph. UI designers are also typically responsible for creating a cohesive style guide and ensuring that a consistent design language is applied across the product. Maintaining consistency in visual elements and defining behavior such as how to display error or warning states fall under the purview of a UI designer.

"Concept and implement the visual language of Airbnb.com. Create and advance site-wide style guides."

-

-UI Designer job description at Airbnb

The boundary between UI and UX designers is fairly blurred and it is not uncommon for companies to opt to combine these roles.

A UI designer defines the overall layout and look & feel of an app.Credit: Metro Style Interface 4 by Ionut Zamfir on Dribbble.

Tools of the trade: Photoshop, Sketch, Illustrator, Fireworks

You might hear them say this in the wild: "The login and sign up links should be moved to the top right corner."

VISUAL DESIGNER (GRAPHIC DESIGNER)

VISUAL DESIGNERS SWEAT THE SMALL DETAILS THAT OTHERS OVERLOOK.

A visual designer is the one who pushes pixels. If you ask a non-designer what a designer does, this is probably what comes to mind first. Visual designers are not concerned with how screens link to each other, nor how someone interacts with the product. Instead, their focus is on crafting beautiful icons, controls, and visual elements and making use of suitable typography. Visual designers sweat the small details that others overlook and frequently operate at the 4x to 8x zoom level in Photoshop.

"Produce high-quality visual designs — from concept to execution, including those for desktop, web, and mobile devices at a variety of resolutions (icons, graphics, and marketing materials). Create and iterate on assets that reflect a brand, enforce a language, and inject beauty and life into a product."

-Visual Designer job description @ Google

It is also fairly common for UI designers to pull double duty and create the final pixel perfect assets. Some companies choose not to have a separate visual designer role.

A visual designer lays out guides and adjusts every single pixel to ensure that the end result is perfect.Credits: iOS 7 Guide Freebie PSD by Seevi kargwal on Dribbble.

Tools of the trade: Photoshop, Sketch

You might hear them say this in the wild: "The kerning is off and the button should be 1 pixel to the left!"

INTERACTION DESIGNER (MOTION DESIGNER)

Remember the subtle bouncing animation when you pull to refresh in the Mail app on your iPhone? That's the work of a motion designer. Unlike visual designers who usually deal with static assets, motion designers create animation inside an app. They deal with what the interface does after a user touches it. For example, they decide how a menu should slide in, what transition effects to use, and how a button should fan out. When done well, motion becomes an integral part of the interface by providing visual clues as to how to use the product.

"Proficiency in graphic design, motion graphics, digital art, a sensitivity to typography and color, a general awareness of materials/textures, and a practical grasp of animation. Knowledge of iOS, OS X, Photoshop and Illustrator as well as familiarity with Director (or equivalent), Quartz Composer (or equivalent), 3D computer modeling, motion graphics are required."

-Interaction Designer job description @ Apple

Tools of the trade: AfterEffects, Core Composer, Flash, Origami

You might hear them say this in the wild:"The menu should ease-in from the left in 800ms."

UX RESEARCHER (USER RESEARCHER)

A UX RESEARCHER IS THE CHAMPION OF A USER'S NEEDS.

A UX researcher is the champion of a user's needs. The goal of a researcher is to answer the twin questions of "Who are our users?" and "What do our users want?" Typically, this role entails interviewing users, researching market data, and gathering findings. Design is a process of constant iteration. Researchers may assist with this process by conducting A/B tests to tease out which design option best satisfies user needs. UX researchers are typically mainstays at large companies, where the access to a plethora of data gives them ample opportunity to draw statistically significant conclusions.

"Work closely with product teams to identify research topics. Design studies that address both user behavior and attitudes. Conduct research using a wide variety of qualitative methods and a subset of quantitative methods, such as surveys."

-UX Researcher job description @ Facebook

UX designers also occasionally carry out the role of UX researchers.

Deliverables: User personas, A/B test results, Investigative user studies & interviews

Tools of the trade: Mic, Paper, Docs

You might hear them say this in the wild: "From our research, a typical user..."

FRONT-END DEVELOPER (UI DEVELOPER)

Front-end developers are responsible for creating a functional implementation of a product's interface. Usually, a UI designer hands off a static mockup to the front-end developer who then translates it into a working, interactive experience. Front-end developers are also responsible for coding the visual interactions that the motion designer comes up with.

Tools of the trade: CSS, HTML, JavaScript

You might hear them say this in the wild: "I'm using a 960px 12 column grid system."

PRODUCT DESIGNER

Product designer is a catch-all term used to describe a designer who is generally involved in the creation of the look and feel of a product.

The role of a product designer isn't well-defined and differs from one company to the next. A product designer may do minimal front-end coding, conduct user research, design interfaces, or create visual assets. From start to finish, a product designer helps identify the initial problem, sets benchmarks to address it, and then designs, tests, and iterates on different solutions. Some companies that want more fluid collaboration within the various design roles opt to have this title to encourage the whole design team to collectively own the user experience, user research, and visual design elements.

Some companies use "UX designer" or simply "designer" as a catch-all term. Reading the job description is the best way to figure out how the company's design team divides the responsibilities.

"Own all facets of design: interaction, visual, product, prototyping. Create pixel-perfect mocks and code for new features across web and mobile."

-Product Designer job description @ Pinterest

"I AM LOOKING FOR A DESIGNER"

This is the single most common phase I hear from new startups. What they are usually looking for is someone who can do everything described above. They want someone who can make pretty icons, create A/B tested landing sites, logically arrange UI elements on screen, and maybe even do some front-end development. Due to the broad sweeping scope of this role, we usually hear smaller companies asking to hire a "designer" rather than being specific in their needs.

The boundaries between each of these various design roles are very fluid. Some UX designers are also expected to do interaction design, and often UI designers are expected to push pixels as well. The best way to look for the right person is to describe what you expect the designer to do within your company's process, and choose a title that best represents the primary task of that person.

A version of this article originally appeared here. It was republished with permission.

[Image: Abstract via Shutterstock, GIF: An interaction designer is responsible for deciding how the menu should fan out. Credit: iOS Menu Concept by Jeremey Fleischer on Dribbble.]

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LO MIN MING

Lo Min Ming is the cofounder of Pixelapse, a visual version control platform for designers. Continued