Subscription Management Tips for Marketo

January 24, 2013 By Josh Hill

Email is the foundation of marketing automation, thus keeping your list active and opted-in is a critical task. New Marketo users (and even experienced ones) need Subscription Management built in to their instance.

Building a subscription management system will increase your active and marketable database as well as help you stay compliant with local privacy laws.

References to legal situations are not intended as legal advice. Seek counsel in your jurisdiction.

One of Marketo’s key advantages for the marketer is the ability to integrate and manage contact preferences for all modes of communications, marketing channels, and more. Many of my clients request help creating subscription management workflows to graduate from the universal Unsubscribe to a system where the Lead can select the type, mode, and frequency of communication from their firms.

Developing a system from scratch can be fairly simple or fairly hard. More complicated workflows will require an SFDC Administrator and possibly your web programmer, depending on your needs.

There are 7 components to building a successful subscription management system.

Privacy and Communication Policy
Subscriptions and Communication Channels
Database Fields and Campaigns
Marketo Lists
Marketo Form
Marketo Page
Marketo Workflows

What is Subscription Management?

Subscription Management is a replacement for the standard “unsubscribe page” that is required by most jurisdictions, and in the United States under the CANSPAM rules. Instead of letting people opt-out entirely from your list, you invite them to subscribe to the communication types and channels they want. This nicely follows the Golden Rule while ensuring you comply with the law.

“Offer subscription management to your audience: it’s how they want to be treated.”

Now take the following steps to develop your working Subscription Management page in Marketo.

1. Privacy and Communication Policy

You probably have a privacy policy and one or more “subscriptions” such as a newsletter. Perhaps you have different types of emails you send to your opted-in list. You also communicate with your prospects and clients via Phone, Email, Post, and even SMS.

You should have a policy clearly explaining to your audience how you will communicate with them, when, and for what, while providing the option for your audience to change those methods.

2. Subscriptions and Communication Channels

Which channels do you currently use to reach your audience? Are you sure those are the right ones? Make sure you create a nice grid describing the Channels and the Content or subscriptions available through those channels. You will need this understanding to program the system correctly.

3. Database Fields and Campaigns

Once you have your grid, you can then update the fields, checkboxes, and SFDC Campaigns necessary to drive the entire system. If you don’t already keep track of certain channels or subscription content, here’s your chance to upgrade your system.

4. Marketo Lists

Now create the relevant Marketo Smart Lists and Static Lists corresponding to each channel+subscription for both opted-in and opted-out Leads.

5. Marketo Form

Now create a corresponding Subscription Management Form with the proper fields and data you need to collect. Remember to make Email Address mandatory. Also make sure that your default options are Blank. It is now against the law in Canada to “pre-check” the opted-in status, so I recommend letting the Lead choose what they want and avoid pre-seeding their mind.

6. Marketo Page

Of course, you will need a Marketo landing page to place the form on. If you can, you might consider pre-filling the form with the current preferences. Make sure the confirmation page shows the selected preferences if you can.

7. Marketo Workflows

Now you need to program the logic into Marketo using the proper Data Value Changes triggers to modify SFDC Campaign Member Statuses which ensure you have a clear opted-in and opted-out list which is updated instantaneously.

How Do You Build Subscription Management in Marketo?

You might check out my other post on building subscription management in Marketo. My upcoming Subscription Management chapter will provide exquisite detail on building a system as well.

Marketo often recommends a double opt-in process where a lead subscribes to your list, then receives a follow up email asking them to click a link to confirm their subscription. This process avoids improper prank sign ups as well as demonstrates the Lead’s engagement by having them take a positive action. Creating such a system in Marketo isn’t too hard, but it isn’t obvious either. That’s why I am sharing an excerpt from the Subscription Management chapter here, just on the double opt-in process.

Download the special double opt-in system example on Additional Tips & Tricks for Subscription Management in Marketo [PDF]

And remember to sign up for future alerts!

[Updated: Jan 6, 2018 typos and bad links]

Marketo Triggers, Flows, and Filters Reference Guide – Finally

January 22, 2013 By Josh Hill

After many hours of toil, I present to you the complete Marketo Filters, Flows, and Triggers Reference Guide, a chapter of the Marketing Rockstar’s Guide to Marketo.

This highly detailed reference guide covers every single item with screenshots, examples, and suggestions so you completely understand which combination of triggers, filters, and operators will get you the right Smart List. I show you the Flow actions and how they actually work.

I even tell you which triggers and filters to completely avoid. Marketo won’t tell you this, but I’ve learned it the hard way so you don’t spend time wondering why a trigger misfired.

This section of the Marketing Rockstar’s Guide to Marketo is the largest at 74 pages.

But this is too juicy to put out in the wild. Below you will find a link to a sample of this amazing reference work. I can only show you the first 11 pages. I am confident this is such a great tool that you will want to see more, even if you think you know a lot about Marketo already.

To see more email me: marketo.guide {at] marketingrockstarguides.com. If I get enough responses, I’ll consider a special early release of just this chapter for a very special price. But you need to email me to get on this early bird list.

Here it is:

Appendix I: Marketo Filters, Flows, and Triggers Reference Guide [Slideshare]

Marketing Automation Pricing Comparisons

January 17, 2013 By Josh Hill

Marketing automation is a big investment for many firms and everyone is keen to show serious results from using the tools. Before you can do that, however, you need to take a look at the pricing options available.

Learn how to calculate the estimated price of a solution

Record Count: In your Salesforce.com system’s Setup, expand Data Management and click on the Storage Usage link. Look for and add up the Record Counts of Leads and Contacts. [Updated: thanks to David Carnes at OpFocus for reminding me to fix this one!]
What you want to do with the system. Do you need email? automation? landing pages? inbound and outbound? For instance, if you just need an inbound blog platform, HubSpot may do. If you want automation and outbound options, you may like Marketo more.
Review all the marketing automation features you need and are offered.
Your maximum ability to spend. Keep in mind the system may be worth 1-2 FTEs in total time savings and increase in the number of tasks you can manage with one person.

When building your budget, don’t take the current amount you are spending on email software as the only reference point. Sure, you can reallocate those funds quickly, but I bet if you were just sending emails, it will not be enough. Take into account the time saved from automation of tasks (email creation, lead flow management, deduping) and the leverage you create by having a tightly integrated sales funnel.

The Big Marketing Automation Pricing Comparison

Marketo Pricing: Marketo’s pricing for SMBs is in three tiers from Spark to Select, then a fourth tier Enterprise. Fees are monthly, quarterly, or annually. Expect to pay between $30K to $70K per year in most cases. Pricing is based on your record count at the start of the contract. Typically includes on-boarding process and standard support which is usually enough. There are no per email fees. Extras like dedicated IPs can be negotiated. List prices may be negotiable. Marketo recently upgraded all tiers to unlimited Marketing Users, which is a big plus.
HubSpot Pricing uses a 3 tier base system plus a monthly fee for the size of your database. Expect to pay $20K-$50K per year, up front. Smaller businesses which use the Basic package can start lower than $10K. There are no per email fees. HubSpot does require one time setup and training fees which add $2,000 to $7,000. If you are new to the web, blogging, and inbound it could be worth it. You can effectively use HubSpot as your website and analytics tool if that helps you drop other services.
Pardot Pricing (ExactTarget) also has a three tier base system starting with 30K records and adding $300/mo for each additional 30K. There are no per email fees. There are file, landing page, and other limitations which other services do not have. Billing is quarterly for the annual fee. Some fees and extras may be negotiable.
Act-on Pricing is simple and potentially limiting. They charge per active contact tier starting at $500 for 2,500 contacts you can email per month. That means if you email 2500 people in a month, that’s it. No more emails until you pay more. [Update] According to Act-On staff, there are unlimited plans, but I was unable to review them for this post.
Eloqua Pricing (Oracle) also has three pricing tiers with a base price plus a fee for contacts over 10K. Eloqua does limit Marketing Users. They have a range of add-ons and pricing can be negotiated. Expect to pay $24K to $100K depending on your database size. There are no per email fees.

Are There Alternatives to Marketing Automation?

That depends on what you need. If you are looking primarily for email marketing, tracking, and basic management, there are plenty of tools. The most popular and reliable are:

Mailchimp is what I use here to manage my list. If you want to help me and Mailchimp out, get me to 2,000 subscribers and I’ll start paying. The system is quite good and can be more flexible if you have someone who can create email templates and use the API. Expect to pay $100 to $3,000 per year. There are no per email fees.
ExactTarget started out with email solutions which are robust. I’ve never used it and they aren’t posting pricing. Expect contact or per email pricing.
Silverpop also has a marketing automation solution which they acquired. I hear their deliverability services are quite good.
ConstantContact is still primarily about email marketing. Their pricing is similar to Mailchimp’s: based on records. Expect to pay about $1,800-$3,000 if you have a larger database.

Of course, if your team needs to leverage automation, email, pages, and scoring to be effective, you need to go with a fully featured marketing automation solution. Email platforms aren’t going to cut it.

Marketing Automation Consulting Fees

Fees for consulting implementation or other services, such as Marketo training, vary widely depending on what you need done and when. Here are some general ideas to get you started:

Full Marketing Automation Agencies including Marketo Professional Services: $200-250/hr. LeadMD posts their pricing in a fairly transparent manner.
Independent Marketing Consultants: about $100-150/hr. Anyone who is charging less is probably not worth it based on what I’ve heard from clients. Similarly, anyone who offers me less does not value good work.
Enterprise level integration companies like BlueWolf are more appropriate for major work. Expect to pay over $30,000 to start.

Calculating the Marketing Automation Total Cost of Ownership

You probably forgot to also include costs such as integration time and fees, consultant fees (like me), and design fees. Many of the people I work with take a Marketo implementation as a good moment to upgrade email and page templates, since most of those templates are out of date. You can take advantage of the propensity to spend while spending to upgrade whatever you need. Some firms may lack expertise to run the combined automation system and will need to hire a Marketing Programs Manager, Marketing Operations Manager, or a Demand Manager to be at the helm.

Email Templates: $500-1500. Marketo will take your templates and load them for you for $500/hr. I can do this for $145/hr or your designer can do this too.
Landing Page Templates: $500-2000. Again, Marketo or a consultant can help you here because there is critical HTML code to make this work properly.
Operations or Demand Gen Manager: currently running at $80,000 to $95,000 in many areas of the US. Additional database skills such as SQL or SFDC Admin will cost more.
SFDC Admin or Certified Consultant: a good one could start at $250/hr. Good FTEs are often $100K+. I recommend having one on call if your SFDC is complex or very large.
Marketo Partner Agency: $200-250/hr
Independent Marketo Consultant or small agency: $145/hr

If you don’t need to hire additional staff, your TCO may run between $25,000-$75,000 per year. If you decide you need to hire someone or a consultant for any stage of the implementation, you may need to add another $2,500 to $20,000. So even if in the first year you spend $100,000 to setup, learn, and enhance your automation system, your productivity will be at least twice that of a single FTE you could have hired.

What are your experiences buying email or automation platforms? Let us know below.

And remember to sign up to receive updates on the Marketing Rockstar’s Guide to Marketo.

How to Handle Marketing Automation Mistakes with the Golden Rule

January 15, 2013 By Josh Hill

Imagine you just sent 100,000 emails to your list.

But the email had the wrong date and time. People are already registering for your event.

Or the white paper link is a test page and people are clicking and bouncing off your site.

Don’t Panic! You can save face and help people at the same time!

If you use any type of marketing automation tool, you’ve probably encountered a similar situation at least once. So how do you fix the error?

The Golden Rule says to treat others the way you would want to be treated in the same situation. Your audience has the capacity to forgive mistakes–if you treat your leads the way they want to be treated in that situation. The principle is to be as open and apologetic as possible without overstating your case or sending more emails than you need to correct the error. Let’s take a look at three scenarios:

Scenario 1: Correcting a Typo, Date, URL, or Wrong Email

Sending an email before it was ready is a common error. Maybe a URL was wrong, perhaps the email name changed, the dates needed to be corrected, etc…And you’re under pressure to get campaigns out the door to pull in more leads to your insatiable funnel, right?

Mistakes happen.

A typo can be embarrassing. Fortunately, not everyone will notice a typo because email is scanned before it is read. If the typo is trivial, do nothing. Sending a second email or apology will only draw attention to your mistake. A second, similar email within a short amount of time will lower your email reputation because spam filters will view a repeat email as potential spam. Your leads will be annoyed with a second email and may ignore, spam filter, or unsubscribe you.

Great, you say, but what about the big invitation with the wrong date? What do I do now?

There are three options depending on how far the bad email went:

Stop the campaign running right now, if you can. Then you can send the correction to the group who received the wrong email.
Send a corrected email to anyone who may have been directly affected, including people who Opened, Clicked, or Registered.
Send a correction to everyone.

My preference is for 1 or 2 unless there was something far worse going on (see Scenario 3).

If you can, stop the campaign process now. Here is how to do that.

Step 1: Deactivate or Stop the Next Run

Go to the campaign schedule tab and deactivate it, which also includes deleting future Runs. If you were able to cancel the Run before its activation time, great! Go ahead to fix your email and rescheduling this one.

Marketing Automation Best Practice: schedule your email campaign at least 10 minutes in the future. – Click to Tweet

Step 2: Press the Big Red Button to Delete the Flow Step in the Campaign

If you campaign is already running in Marketo, you might be able to kill further mistakes by deleting the next flow step. Deactivation does not stop the Send Email flow step. Marketo recommends then Deleting the entire Campaign flow step to ensure the process ends. If there are more than 10,000 Leads, please call Marketo Support for immediate help.

Since some or all of your target leads were sent the email, you need to handle a possible correction, go to Step 3.

Step 3: Create a new email with corrected text

If you believe it is necessary, add an apology. If you made an error on the date, time, or location of something, be sure to make it clear that you are correcting this.

Step 4: Schedule the Email

Wait an hour or two if you can because you will likely want to restrict the second email to leads who Opened or Clicked in the email. While apologies are great, you may only want to send a correction to the people who actually saw the email.

Of course, if you were sending a follow up email for an event, you may want to send the correction to the entire list.

Step 5: Sending Corrections to Affected Leads

The difficulty here is that not everyone allows images or html, so you may lose quite a few people who did see the typo, but who blocked you from tracking them.

Create a new campaign in the Program: Invitation – Correction
In the Smart List use filters such as Member of Campaign and (Opened Email OR Clicked Link in Email). Depending on the situation you may want to use Was Sent Email or Was Delivered Email filters.
Test the Email. Really. Use the Test button. Use it at least 3 times to different email boxes, which will force you to actually read it this time.
Schedule the email. When you schedule the campaign to run, tell it to run in 10 minutes. That way you will have time for your brain to realize any other mistakes.

Scenario 2: Duplicate Email Sends

If you accidently sent the same email twice in a short period, there is not much you can do about it. Ideally, if you caught your mistake, cancel the seond run. But in Marketo, it is possible for a Default Action in a Flow step to send the email again if you chose your Choices poorly.

Sending a third email to apologize for a second email is not going to help your reputation. The third email will be viewed as yet another annoyance. Ask, “Would I want to receive a third or fourth email explaining a silly error like this?” I bet you said “No.” So don’t do that to other people.

In most cases, there is nothing to do other than apologize to anyone who complains. This is why it is critical to monitor generic email boxes as well as persona boxes each day. A quick response to an annoyed lead will soothe them fast. Ignoring someone will make their irritation turn into possible anger, which can only cause them to become net detractors.

Scenario 3: The Massive Apology

The massive apology should be reserved for the total mess up. You will know when this moment arrives. It could be that auto renew message for 500 people which went to 8 million. It might be a cancellation notice intended for 200 deadbeats that instead went to all of your best clients. Or perhaps, God forbid, a malicious person swapped your copy (or spoofed your domain) and sent out terrible messages to everyone.

In any case, you need to use crisis management techniques.

Find out what happened.
Be honest with what you know and don’t know.
If it was your fault, admit this quickly and unequivocally.
Offer corrected information.
Offer compensation if appropriate.
Review your email campaign process and adjust the procedures to avoid such an error again.

In this situation, you should email everyone who was on the list as well as post details on your website just as Boingo and the New York Times did.

Use Checklists and the Buddy System to Prevent Errors

Computers can do things fast, including amplify errors you make. When you build a workflow, make sure you test it well so you avoid mistake emails; wrong list sends; and 100,000 emails to one person.

To avoid future errors, build a process with redundancies using checklists and the buddy system. Use my Marketing Automation Checklists to help get started. Marketo has paired marketers to help catch each other’s mistakes before they leave the service. Also, ask questions like

Database selects: does this number make sense?
Am I sure that I selected the right list: eg: Has Opportunity = True AND Status=Closed/Won vs. Has Opportunity=True AND Status=Closed/Lost? Inverse select errors are easy to make and can be avoided.
Is this an email I would want if I were my target audience?

Mistakes do happen and they can be corrected deftly using the steps above. If you are ever in a situation like this, you can always fall back on the Golden Rule: “What would I want if I were my audience?”

Learn more about demand generation and Marketo! Sign up for the Marketing Rockstar’s Guide to Marketo email list.

Image: Striatic flickr

How to Learn Demand Generation in the Real Time Era

January 9, 2013 By Josh Hill

When I first went from Sales to Marketing in 2008, demand generation was still a phrase limited to forward thinkers. We were just beginning the journey into crossing the sales-marketing divide and automation systems were only just leaving the early adopter phase in the SMB space. So I had to learn demand generation for B2B firms from my colleagues and the bloggers leading the charge.

I found few free resources initially and thought it would be great to have a textbook for B2B marketing and demand generation, since none of my marketing courses prepared me for reality. Sure, we spoke about the 4Ps and innovation processes, but never about AB testing, content marketing, or differences between B2B and B2C. Then I saw Marketing Sherpa largely owned that space, clearly filling much of the gap—for a fee. Anne Holland saw the same gap in information I did. After a few years, I still believe we lack a comprehensive, practical guide to B2B marketing.

Eventually I came across Marketo, Eloqua, and David Meerman Scott’s blogs and writings. I found helpful guides, musings, case studies, and ideas for taking content I already had and making it work harder so I didn’t have to. From Marketo and Eloqua, I learned of the systems I had dreamed of and how I could learn more about my leads before anyone even called them. From David Meerman Scott, I learned what content marketing really meant, how I could use it, and what was possible with a real time mindset. Putting this into practice is my job.

The Real Time Marketing World is Your School

There is no textbook, course, or review of these topics. Sure, marketing is rapidly changing, so there shouldn’t be a central authority because that goes against the real time, decentralized nature of the tools we now have. I get that. But how about a near real time, curated course which is updated every 4-6 months? Such a program would allow those new to B2B marketing to establish a foundation in the field before representing your company? Either way, to learn demand generation, you need to treat the world as your school.

Learn demand generation and marketing automation from practitioners, not a textbook. – Click to Tweet.

To that end, I complied a list of possible materials, many of which can be had for free at the library or online.

1. HubSpot’s Blog

I may not use HubSpot’s system, but I do use their blog. Their torrent of useful content is my go to source for understanding how to use the latest sharing tools or even learning SEO/SEM. Because of their close relationship with Google, they are the best place to find out about new features or changes I can make use of.

The other reason to subscribe to the RSS and their Twitter is to stay aware of their analyses of real time marketing. HubSpot will detail aggregate information on email subject lines, twitter, SEO, and landing pages from their 6,000 customers. Their in-house wizard, Dan Zarella, monitors social network data with the best insights—and it’s all free of charge.

2. David Meerman Scott’s Blog

I’ve been reading David’s blog since 2010 and wish I had found it earlier. His insight is real and he actively practices what he preaches. I had the pleasure of meeting David after the release of Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead, which nicely encapsulated their open source philosophy for the 21^st Century.

3. Harvard Business Review’s Blog Feed

Sometimes I love this feed, sometimes I hate it. You have to monitor it for what’s relevant to you and it’s not always easy to filter out the wheat from the chaff. The blog is a bit different because you can glean summaries of key articles or hear from non-HBS thought leaders who often share unique insights here instead of their own blogs.

4. Real Time Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott

David continues his analysis and case studies of how to use the internet to act immediately—and appropriately—to customers, prospects, and media.

5. Newsjacking by David Meerman Scott

David goes into detail of how to take advantage of the 24 hour news cycle in the best way possible.

6. Marketo’s Definitive Guide to Marketing Metrics & Analytics

For those new to marketing metrics, this is a helpful guide to understanding what can be measured and how it can be measured.

7. Marketo’s Definitive Guide to Lead Scoring

Despite my recent anti-lead scoring post, I believe Marketo’s Guide to be the best explanation for developing your own model. If only they also told you how to program lead scoring in Marketo, but I took care of that.

8. InsideSales/MIT Lead Timing Survey 2011

This critical survey confirmed what great sales people already know: the best time to call a lead back is immediately. If I were running a sales team, I would run it like Marketo or HubSpot—you call someone back in under 1 hour or the Service Level Agreement warning bells start to go off. Any sales person who believes it is ok to wait until tomorrow or until they are “less busy” should be fired immediately.

My own success in sales came from being responsive to clients and prospects, returning emails and calls immediately, even if just to acknowledge the receipt. I won a $150,000 deal with almost no work because I called a prospect 5 minutes after he sent an inquiry email. It works. Do it.

9. HubSpot’s Science of Timing (Dan Zarella)

Dan puts on this webinar periodically to analyze email time of day and day of week data from HubSpot’s customers. (Adestra also did a similar study). This is helpful information to use when starting out because he demolishes myths about the Tues-Thursday and morning-afternoon dilemma. Ultimately, you have to do your own analysis for your own audience.

10. HubSpot’s Guides

HubSpot publishes Guides to social media, email, landing pages, SEO, and SEM to help their clients, as well as establish their brand on the internet. They taught me many things about the practical nature of marketing in the real time era, and they can help you too.

11. Buyer Persona Institute

You can always learn about Personas from HubSpot, David Meerman Scott, or a host of other marketers, but Adele Revella is the leader of this facet of marketing. I see very few firms successfully implementing a Persona program and I am ashamed to admit I haven’t done much work on it for my own business. It’s worth it and it does simplify marketing so you can churn out relevant content faster.

12. The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau

Chris writes about small entrepreneurs who started with a very small investment, took action, and were successful. Many of the case studies talk about the practical nature of operating an internet business.

13. Tribes by Seth Godin

A great book on how to find and lead a community of likeminded people now that you can find them on the internet.

14. Poke the Box by Seth Godin

Another provocative book to get you moving out of the doldrums of the comfort zone where “That’s the way it’s been done,” is banished.

15. Which Test Won by Anne Holland

A fun daily site for landing page AB tests with over 300 case studies and other detailed help for marketers. The full service is relatively low cost, although I often head to HubSpot for ideas instead.

16. Marketing Sherpa

The company Anne Holland founded and sold is still a leading source of B2B benchmarking data by industry. Marketing Sherpa offers a limited selection of free content and a wealth of practical information.

With the rapid pace of business and stream of new tools, a comprehensive guide to demand generation would certainly be out of date in a short period, unless it were a blog–a guide continually updated each day. Starting with the content above should give anyone a good foundation to get started in B2B marketing.

Do you have your favorite blogs or books you would add to this? Tell us below!

And remember to sign up for blog updates via email.

Image: English106, flickr