the three-step-marketing-audit-how-to-use-customer-data-to-recharge-your-marketing

THE 3-STEP MARKETING AUDIT: HOW TO USE CUSTOMER DATA TO RECHARGE YOUR MARKETING

Learn How To Find Valuable Insights About Your Lead Conversion Experience By Running a HubSpot Customer Audit

A publication of

ADvANCED

HOW TO USE CUSTOMER DATA TO RECHARGE YOUR MARKETING2

www.Hubspot.com

share this Ebook!

Introductory content is for marketers who are new to the subject. This content typically includes step-by-step instructions on how to get started with this aspect of inbound marketing and learn its fundamentals. After reading it, you will be able to execute basic marketing tactics related to the topic.

INTRODUCTORY

IS THIS EBOOK RIGHT FOR ME?Not quite sure if this ebook is right for you? See the below description to determine if your level matches the content you are about to read.

Intermediate content is for marketers who are familiar with the subject but have only basic experience in executing strategies and tactics on the topic. This content typically covers the fundamentals and moves on to reveal more complex functions and examples. After reading it, you will feel comfortable leading projects with this aspect of inbound marketing.

INTERMEDIATE

Advanced content is for marketers who are, or want to be, experts on the subject. In it, we walk you through advanced features of this aspect of inbound marketing and help you develop complete mastery of the subject. After reading it, you will feel ready not only to execute strategies and tactics, but also to teach others how to be successful.

ADvANCED THIS RESOURCE


www.Hubspot.com

share this Ebook!

... brings your whole marketing world together in one, powerful, integrated sys-tem.

HubSpot’S All-in-one MARKETING SOFTWARE.

MARKETING ANAlYTICS

Y

Request A Demo

video Overview

Analyze your web traffic and see which sources are generating the most leads.

NBlOGGINGCreate blog content quick-ly while getting SEO tips and best practice pointers as you type.

MEMAIlSend personalized,segmented emails based on any information in your contact database.

SEARCH OPTIMIzATION

s Improve your rank in search engines by finding and tracking your most ef-fective keywords.

UlEAD MANAGEMENTTrack leads with acomplete timeline-view of their interactions with your company

qSOCIAl MEDIAPublish content to your social accounts, thennurture leads based on their social engagement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DX_bqIr7pGzQ


www.Hubspot.com

share this Ebook!

HOW TO USE CUSTOMER DATA TO RECHARGE YOUR MARKETING

WRITTEn BY REBECCA GuTnER

Rebecca is a Senior Inbound Marketing

Consultant on the HubSpot Consulting

team. Over the past 10 years, Rebecca

has worked with over 100 companies,

ranging from the Fortune 500, to startups,

to nonprofits. In addition to her love for

data analysis, Rebecca’s areas of expertise

include lead generation and conversion,

segmentation-based email marketing

strategy, search engine optimization, and

general marketing strategy.FOllOW ME ON TWITTER.

@REBECCAGUTNER

FOllOW ME ON TWITTER.@DETECTIvEDDUBS

DESIGnED BY DESmonD WonG

Desmond is a creative designer

and inbound marketer on the

Brand & Buzz team at HubSpot. He

specializes in graphic design, content

creation, and content strategy for

lead generation.


www.Hubspot.com

share this Ebook!

CONTENTS.

InTRoDuCTIon06

WHAT To ConSIDER WHEn BEGInnInG YouR AuDIT

08

HoW To puLL AnD AnALYzE YouR DATA

14

HoW To uSE YouR FInDInGS To InFoRm YouR mARkETInG

21

ConCLuSIon25


www.Hubspot.com

share this Ebook!

Many marketing decisions are made based on a marketer’s

“intuition.” In other words, semi-subjective opinions from Marketing and

Sales. While these opinions can be extremely valuable, where possible

they can (and should!) be paired with objective trends found within your

data.

The HubSpot Customer Audit is designed to provide valuable insight into

your online lead conversion experience. By aggregating and analyzing

the data you’ve collected about your existing customers, an audit will

help you identify trends that can help inform your sales process. An audit

is an important step in verifying the accuracy of assumptions you may

have made about the lead qualification process.

This resource will serve as your guide to learning how to use your data

to conduct your own customer audit.

Introduction.


www.Hubspot.com

share this Ebook!

Some common uses for the customer audit are as follows:

1. To determine/update your lead scoring values

2. To inform your content strategy by learning the types and

frequency of content that best resonates with your existing

customers

3. To guide you as to which traffic sources to invest more resources

4. To update your Sales & Marketing Service Level Agreement

(SLA) to include the most accurate portrayal of sales ready leads

5. To inform your prospecting within certain industries or types of

companies

6. To update your marketing personas to more accurately reflect

your core base of customers

A customer audit can be performed as often as once per quarter and

should be performed at least once per year.


www.Hubspot.com

share this Ebook!

01 CHAPTER

WHAT To ConSIDER WHEn BEGInnInG YouR AuDIT


www.Hubspot.com

share this Ebook!

What to Consider When Beginning

Your Audit

What should your sample size be?

Depending on your business, the sample size of your customer base

may not be large enough to be statistically significant. Generally

speaking, a good rule of thumb for true data significance is 1,000 records

or more. If your data is between 100-1000, it could still have some

significance. If your sample size is less than 100, it can be reviewed for

overarching trends but should be rerun when the group grows to 100.

100 1000

level of Significance

Normally, you should have 1,000 records or more for true data significance. If your sample data is between 100-1000, you should still have some significance.


www.Hubspot.com

share this Ebook!

How Do I Collect Data?

Now you must be wondering -- how is the data being collected? The

answer is simple: form intelligence.

We learned early on that the best way to collect data and intelligence on

your audience is to collect it by providing them an even greater benefit.

You may have done this already without even thinking it! In order to

receive this ebook, you filled out a form that contained various fields.

These fields, depending on how often you’ve filled out out forms, asked

you for some business-specific information. What you may not realize

when filling out those fields is that you’re helping us better analyze and

understand who our audience is and what their interests are.

The best way to collect the right information is to use progressive

profiling. Progressive profiling allows you to control which questions

appear on a form based on what you already know about a lead. That

way, each time a lead fills out a form, you are collecting valuable new

information about them while keeping your forms short and easy to fill

out - not squandering the opportunity by asking the same questions

twice.

Progressive profiling allows you to control which questions appear on a form based on what you already know about a lead.l


www.Hubspot.com

share this Ebook!

What fields should i have on my forms?

Now that you know where data is coming from, here are some suggested

fields to review when designing your audit. Some of this data pulls from

your analytics platform, while other pieces of data must be collected by

asking the right questions on your landing pages. These are suggested

fields for all industries; note that some may not apply to your business.

Demographic Data

Number of Employees

Industry

Annual Revenue

Gender

Age

Job Title

Demographic information will help you determine exactly who your customer is and how to best target them.


www.Hubspot.com

share this Ebook!

Analytics/Behavioral Data

Time First Seen - The date at which the prospect first discovered your site.

First Page Seen - The first page the prospect landed on within your site.

Original Source - The traffic source that first brought the prospect to your site.

First Conversion Date - The date at which the prospect became a lead.

Close Date - The date at which the lead became a customer.

Number of Visits to your site.

Number of Pages Viewed.

Number of Emails Received/Delivered.

Number of Emails Clicked.

Number of Social Media Clicks - The number of times the lead/customer

engaged with your site via social media.

The analytics and behavioral data will give you more insight into the performance of your customers marketing strategies. You’ll be able to guage the success of landing pages, calls-to-actions, and clickthrough rates to help implement new techniques and improve their conversion rates.


www.Hubspot.com

share this Ebook!

Other

Lead Score - (If tracking).

Persona - (If tracking) Author’s Note: if you are tracking leads

by persona and you have enough data, you may want to do an

individual customer audit for each persona type.

Email - This will allow you to dig deeper into an individual record

after the fact to review the interactions with this customer.

Company Name - This will allow you to dig deeper into a

company’s engagement path to becoming a customer.

Any other custom fields you are tracking that would be relevant.

Information like lead scores, emails, company names, and personas can all give you a deeper dive into the customers path of engagement and interactions to better adjust your strategy for acquiring more new customers.


www.Hubspot.com

share this Ebook!

02 CHAPTER

HoW To puLL AnD AnALYzE YouR DATA


www.Hubspot.com

share this Ebook!

What Data Should You Be Pulling?

Most analytics programs allow you to export your lead/customer data

-- collected from form intelligence -- into an excel format. For HubSpot

customers, the steps are as follows:

Step 1: Create a list of customers excluding any imported contacts.

Then export this list into excel.

Step 2: Open the export file and remove all fields except the fields

you have chosen to analyze above.

Step 3: Create a summary sheet (either in a new tab or a separate

document). This will be your central repository for any data you

collect and it will make it easy to visualize your findings. Here is a

sample Summary Sheet from HubSpot data (built in excel):

http://www.hubspot.com/products/analytics%3Fsource%3Dhseb-ebooks-add-resources


www.Hubspot.com

share this Ebook!

Step 4: Begin your data analysis. Use the methods below to

collect the data for each field and add the number to your Summary

Sheet.

Number of Employees Take the average of the numbers in this column.

Annual Revenue Take the average of the numbers in this column.

Industry use a pivot Table to see total numbers of each category for this column. Use the top 2-3 for your summary.

Gender use a pivot Table to tally the totals for this col-umn. Subtract the total for each group from the total number of contacts to find the percentage breakdown.

Age Take the average of this field.

Job Title use a pivot Table to see total numbers of each category for this column. Use the top 2-3 for your summary.

Fill in these columns with the numerical data that you have collected from your forms to create a summary sheet.


www.Hubspot.com

share this Ebook!

Average Sales Cycle (Close Date - Time First Seen)

Create a new column in your excel document and format this column as a number field. Subtract the number in the “Time First Seen” field from the number in the “Close Date” field.

Research Period (First Conversion Date - Time First Seen)

Create a new column in your excel document and format this column as a number field. Subtract the number in the “Time First Seen” field from the number in the “First Conversion Date” field.

First Page Seen use a pivot Table to see total numbers of each category for this column. Use the top 2-3 for your summary.

Original Source Type use a pivot Table to see total numbers of each category for this column. Use the top 2-3 for your summary.

Number of visits Take the average of the numbers in this column.

Number of Pages viewed

Take the average of the numbers in this column.

Number of Emails Received/Delivered


Number of Emails Clicked


Number of Social Media Clicks

use a pivot Table to take a count of how many people have engaged with you in social media. Subtract this number from the total number of contacts to find the percentage breakdown.


www.Hubspot.com

share this Ebook!

lead Score Take the average of this column.

Persona use a pivot Table to see total numbers of each category for this column.

If you don’t use HubSpot, use the current software, analytics, and/or

data you’ve collected over time to gather similar information to what

HubSpot provides. You may not receive the full picture, but hopefully

have enough data to analyze and extract conclusions.


www.Hubspot.com

share this Ebook!

Number of Employees The company size that is most closely aligned with your target customer.

Annual Revenue The average revenue of companies most likely to become your customers.

Industry The most common industries that are finding your site on the web.

Gender The gender of the person most commonly re-searching your product/service offerings.

Age The age of the person most commonly researching your product/service offerings.

Job Title The role of the person most commonly researching your product/service.

Now What Does All That Data You Pulled Mean?

Once you have completed the step of pulling your data, you can now

begin the process of analyzing it. Here are some suggested pieces to

analyze from the data you’ve pulled:

Demographic Data:

use these charts to help determine some helpful takeaways and insights about the data you have collected with your forms.


www.Hubspot.com

share this Ebook!

Analytics/Behavioral Data:

lead Score The average lead score that is indicative of a prospective customer. This will help you identify if the lead score values might be using to register a lead as “marketing qualified” are accurate.

Persona What persona group most commonly leads to customers.

Demographic Data:

Average Sales Cycle (Close Date - Time First Seen)

The average length of time it takes a new customer to convert on your site.

Research Period (First Conversion Date - Time First Seen)

The average length of time it takes a new prospect to become a lead.

First Page Seen The pages that have been successful at bringing leads into the sales cycle.

Original Source Type The most effective traffic sources in driving new customers to your site.

Number of visits The average number of visits a lead makes before becoming a customer.

Number of Pages viewed

The average number of page views a lead sees before becoming a customer.

Number of Emails Received/Delivered

The average number of emails received that helped nurture the customer.

Number of Emails Clicked

The average engagement of leads with your email campaigns.

Number of Social Media Clicks

The number of times the lead/customer engaged with your site via social media.


www.Hubspot.com

share this Ebook!

03 CHAPTER

HoW To uSE YouR FInDInGS To InFoRm YouR mARkETInG


www.Hubspot.com

share this Ebook!

How to Use Your Findings to Inform Your Marketing

There are a number of ways the findings from your customer audit can

be used to inform your marketing. Here are a couple of examples:

1. Determining Your lead Score values

If you have never used a Lead Scoring tool before then the customer

audit is critical to making sure that lead score values are based on

objective data rather than subjective assumptions. To get started,

make a list of the values above that are represented in your lead

scoring tool (if you are using the HubSpot lead scoring tool, all fields

should apply except for Average Sales Cycle and Research Period).

From there, prioritize your list from the most important characteristics

to the least and assign point values in descending order.

2. Informing Your Content Strategy

Use the “Emails Delivered” and “Emails Clicked” fields to determine

the number of emails with which most customers willingly engage.

Next, review the Average Sales Cycle value to determine the

lifespan in which the customer reviewed these emails. Compare

these numbers to your existing lead nurturing campaigns and overall

email marketing strategy. Are you sending the right number of

emails? If not, consider tweaking your campaigns accordingly.


www.Hubspot.com

share this Ebook!

Use the “First Page Seen” data to determine the field that is most

successful in driving visitors to your site. For most companies, this

will be the home page, make sure to review the next 2-3 pages on

the list!

1. Review the content of these interior pages, what do they

provide that might be resonating with the visitor? Do you have

any offers that speak to these topics? If not, consider building

them out and promoting them on these pages.

2 . Are the pages accessible from your homepage and other key

entry points (blog, social media, etc.)? If not, consider providing

more direct links to these pages throughout your site.

3. Determine Your Most Successful traffic Sources

One of the simplest metrics identified in the Audit is the referring

traffic source. Review the most successful sources for customer

generation (Note: this may not be the same as the most successful

site for lead generation). Do most of your customers come from

organic search? Consider investing in your blogging team. Are most

of your customers coming from eferral traffic? Consider expanding

your PR team to help promote your content even further.


www.Hubspot.com

share this Ebook!

4. Update Your SlA

If your Sales and Marketing teams are aligned, you may have set

up a Service Level Agreement (SLA) to determine the types of leads

Marketing must generate for the Sales team. Use the data provided

in the audit to determine if the parameters you’ve set for a marketing

qualified lead are accurate.

5. Structure Your Content to Appeal to Your Target Industries

Review the data from your demographic fields (Industry, Annual

Revenue, Age, Gender and Job Title). Does your existing content

speak to this demographic? If not, consider adding some additional

blog posts or offers (ebooks, webinars, checklists) targeted to these

audiences.

6. Update Your Marketing Personas

Review the assumptions you’ve made about your target persona

groups. Does the demographic data you captured about your

customers align with your assumptions about lead qualification? Is

the Average Sales Cycle in line with your presumed buyer’s journey?

If not, consider tweaking your personas to include these new

findings.


www.Hubspot.com

share this Ebook!

Once you have completed your first audit, plan to make it a regular

occurrence so you can recalibrate your assumptions from time-to-time.

The audit can be performed as often as once per quarter and should be

performed at least once per year.

If you take away one thing from this ebook, it’s this: Your customer

data is an extremely useful tool in helping you create an effective

(and objective!) marketing strategy. Use these insights as a means

to understand how and why your customers found you. The more

you understand your existing customer base, the better you will be at

designing relevant content to find more people who look just like them.

Conclusion.


www.Hubspot.com

share this Ebook!

Not a HubSpot customer but want the same data mentioned in this

guide? Talk to a HubSpot specialist to learn how you can easily put the

right software in place to get the right data to inform your marketing.

Click here to contact a HubSpot marketing specialist today.

COllECT THE DATA YOU NEED WITH HUBSPOT.

TAlK TO US TODAY.

Http://bitlY.coM/HS-contAct-SAleS

http://bitly.com/HS-Contact-Sales

the three-step-marketing-audit-how-to-use-customer-data-to-recharge-your-marketing

Business