Hi All,

One of my users was editing an email in the WYSIWYG editor and dragged a text box off the edge of the canvas. This box had some text in it, and we now can't get to it to delete it, but it is still showing up in previews and the test mails. Has anybody seen this before and if so, how did you deal with it?

Thanks,

Rob

We are trying to integrate Salesforce.com with Eloqua but our instance of Salesforce.com allows duplicate contacts and email address in the system.  Our solution is to create a Master Record filed that only allows one of the duplicates to sync with Eloqua. Has anyone else come across this problem and have any other solutions?

Does anybody know why you can't mark a picklist form field as required?  I'm working on a form where we'd like to have email address and the picklist required.  The submitter needs to select an option from the list.  I can make the email address required no problem, but that particular checkbox tab in the form editor box is disabled.  Nothing happens when I click on it.  Has anyone had this problem before?

Manufacturers are plagued with decentralization.  Because manufacturers are tasked with managing numerous products, and across multiple geos, it’s very easy for an organization to lose brand control. Compound that with the complexity of the partner and dealer distribution models and you have a recipe for fragmentation. Manufacturers often have issues with product teams and partners building duplicate websites.  Regional teams will then develop these same sites in their native languages.  This results in inconsistent branding, and equally detrimental, a decrease in data transparency.  In order to shift from a cost-center to a revenue-center, manufacturers need to come together as one team, as one company, bringing all marketing investments into alignment.

Manufacturing marketers are focusing on predictive marketing, solution selling, integrated sales, expert support, and unified customer experiences.  Manufacturers also need to move fast.  In order to meet their objectives they need to digitize and they need to centralize their marketing strategy.  Websites are often the digital hub for that centralization. It’s through the website that brand is strengthened, customer experiences are fused, and analytics are gathered.

But How Will They Find Our Content?!

Have you heard this before? In my experience I’ve found this is the greatest objection to a centralized marketing strategy.  Product teams and geos worry their content will get lost in the fray.  They balk at pulling their product site into a larger corporate site because they believe they will fall to the bottom of site navigation map.

In order to gain the buy-in needed, marketers needed to demonstrate the benefits of centralized content and analytics, as well as satisfy the traffic requirements of the numerous product teams.  While explaining the benefits of  inbound tactics like SEO, that’s often not enough to calm the angst of losing ownership of an entire site.

Get Smart Content might be the solution you are looking for, the glue that leverages and increases the effectiveness of all your marketing investments.  Get Smart Content works with manufacturers to instantaneously display the relevant offerings on the web page to the appropriate traffic segments the very millisecond someone visits the website.  Manufacturers use this solution to not just drive inbound traffic, but convert that traffic into action.  Manufacturers have seen success with initiatives like up-selling and cross-selling, promotion of training initiatives, and sample requests.  This direction can be driven by the behavioral data (Digital Body Language) of the contact, previous product purchase history, previous site engagement, referring URL, geolocation and keywords searched.

Drive Web Traffic to Mid-range Products

Rockwell Automation needed a solution that would enable them to not only increase traffic to their mid-range pages, but drive the right segment of their overall website traffic. They also needed a method of ensuring these mid-range product pages engaged and converted each visitor with relevant content upon landing.

They segmented based on migration (customer previously purchased older controller), up-sell (customer previously purchased controller, but not mid range), and acquisition (existing customer who owns a different product).   Before, conversion rates were at 5%.  Conversion rates shifted to 23% on migration, 18% on up-sell, and 43% on acquisition.

Cummins saw a similar challenge because they also have a diverse set of products.  The Cummins corporate web team is tasked with engaging and routing visitors to the most relevant business unit’s  corresponding web properties, each which has their own relevant product content, engagement paths and calls to action.  By implementing Get Smart Content, Cummins saw a 53% increase in relevant traffic to business groups.

How does your company drive relevant traffic to the appropriate pages on your website? Are you challenged by these same multi-product challenges?

If so, reach out to Get Smart Content.  They can help.

I'm curious if most Eloquans design emails and landing pages within Eloqua or if any other tools are used (e.g. Dreamweaver). If you use other tools, please tell me what you are using.

We are trying to add our subscribers in Program Builder and map them to the email group, and do not have the "upload" step pictured below. Any ideas why this would be the case? Are we missing a step somehow? We only have the options for One-time and Automatically Recurring. Thanks in advance!

It's our quarter end, and as I find myself hitting refresh for the 400th time today I was wondering if I am the only freak that's essentially not interacting with humans or having real conversations so I can watch the orders come in. What's your way of handling this time of the year?

My company has been using Eloqua for quite some time. When I joined, I found a long list of shared assets -- some dating back to the Eisenhower administration.

During my Eloqua University training, I've been encouraged to "share" assets with my team whenever possible. However, I'm not entirely clear on how to best take advantage of useful assets that a long-departed co-worker may have created.

For example, let's say that I created a shared filter that gives me a list of all people in the US who would gladly trade a cow for a sack of Magic Beans.

I save it as a shared filter (and maybe or maybe not include the optional description)

Now, assume that a co-worker in another department (perhaps in another country, who probably doesn't know me) needs to find a list of customers who are interested in Magic Beans.

Other than wading through the hundreds of shared filters that have accumulated in the system over the years, is there a "Smart" way of finding that filter (and, by extension, any useful shared asset?)

I am eager to share my new assets -- but even more eager to leverage what the more-experienced Eloquans have shared.

Thanks!!

so... anyone know how to make a multi-select list mandatory?

we have forms from E9 that have it, and we are struggling to make that happen in E10 !

Although we hate creating 1 off email campaigns, the simple email campaign canvas is an awesome addition to Eloqua. Totally unique spin on the traditionally campaign canvas! What's everyone think about the Simple Campaign Wizard?

As we're in the discovery phases of building out our custom Communication Preferences for our Eloqua contacts, among our preferences, we'd like to offer contacts the option to "Pause" communications for a set period of time, and also "Un-Pause" if they are currently in a paused status.

This seems like a job for Program Builder... Anyone implemented something similar and care to share some tips?

Thank you!

What is your social media of choice?

Hi all,

Just looking to see if there's a way to use a contact filter or even the reporting console to see how many companies/accounts there are in the database. Also, this would be in E9.

Thanks!

Location: Berkeley, CA

John McNeil Studio (JMS) is a collective of strategists, writers, designers, filmmakers, technologists, musicians and photographers who help companies tell compelling stories and build brands. We love digital but embrace print. We are founded in aesthetics, but also in utility. We make things that make brands grow.

Demand Generation Team Description

We are building a Demand Generation team of systems experts who can analyze and audit data, turn data into insights, and build and refine strategy based on this knowledge. The Demand Gen team will design Industry best practice campaigns based on client requirements, the JMS collective team input and help advise clients on the most effective Demand Gen strategy for their unique brand.

The team will consistently monitor campaign and lead generation metrics, refine campaign flow, build strategies to optimize engagement during the life-cycle of marketing efforts, and ensure proper system set-up to enable effective campaign reporting and analytics through regular metric presentations.

Specifically, team members will assess client marketing system capabilities, determine whether they are using the system/platform to its full potential, and recommend enhancements/improvements as needed. The team will serve as a strong technical partner the client can rely on for solid advice related to their Demand Gen objectives.

Marketing Automation Manager/Consultant

We’re looking for a Marketing Automation Manager/Consultant to join our Demand Gen team in Berkeley, CA. You are someone who is adept at using marketing automation technologies, can build strong relationships both with clients and internal teams, exudes confidence when interacting with clients, and can serve as a consummate expert in all things Demand Gen. You are familiar with potential consumer touch-points from content marketing and blogging, SEO, social media, direct and email marketing to Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising, content syndication, and telesales, and how each of these touch points can impact our clients brand. You have hands-on experience executing lead scoring and nurturing campaigns, testing and optimization.

Role

• Contribute to/develop presentations and eloquently demonstrate Marketing Automation/Demand Gen capabilities and benefits to clients and prospects.
• Work collaboratively with both client stakeholders and JMS Project Managers and Strategy team to scope, analyze, design, develop and deliver quality solutions closely aligned with client’s brand, business requirements and project objectives.
• Demand Gen engagement strategy optimization - assess clients’ marketing data and platforms to ensure capabilities are maximized and the right metrics are captured to consistently refine and fine-tune campaign flow.
• Create process flows and key team documentation.
• Responsible for identifying and pulling leads from client and 3^rd party databases leveraging our clients infrastructure.
• Proven ability to problem solve, work collaboratively with clients and internal cross-functional teams, and to serve as liaison, consultant, and advisor.
• Setup campaign testing or provide guidance on how to do so in client’s marketing automation platforms platform.
• Identify data needed to execute and track Demand Gen strategies.

Qualifications

• A comprehensive understanding of data driven marketing strategies and ability to run campaigns within systems to either directly manage or recommend steps for execution.
• Solid understanding of marketing data capture and processing.
• Passion for innovation and technology with a solid understanding of Marketing Automation/Demand Gen best practices and trends.
• 5+ years experience in direct/digital marketing agency or on internal corporate marketing team.
• Demonstrated knowledge of marketing automation tools (Marketo, Eloqua - Masters certified preferred).
• Craving for a fast-moving, entrepreneurial agency environment.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, including the ability to work effectively with both technical and non-technical project members.
• Ability to prioritize tasks and set expectations to manage multiple projects at once.
• Self-starter — ability to manage projects independently and with minimal supervision.

Interested in joining us? We’re currently hiring for the positions listed below. Send your cover letter, resume and portfolio to:  jobs@johnmcneilstudio.com

Pharma and Biotech manufacturers understand the challenges of a reduced sales force and decreasing accesses to HCPs.  They also recognize the value in advertising.  Advertising is a tried and true practice in the pharma and biotech space. But, demonstrating engagement— and return—on advertising has always been difficult. On average, digital ads only reach 33% of their intended target.  And the more specialized your product or industry, the harder it becomes to reach your intended audience.  But digital advertising, focused on personalization, leveraging content approval and publishing, and respecting privacy, can aid in solving this problem. Pharma and biotech manufacturers can now better service and educate their audience, understand engagement and interest, and communicate return on advertising investment.  It can deliver inbound results and provide continual pull through a communication cycle.

And this could also be a new tool for driving sample request.

Sampling and trialing can be a pharma or biotech manufacturer’s most effective marketing tool, but it can also be a very expensive activity.  According to the Promotion Marketing Association’s Sampling and Demonstration Council, 83% of consumers agreed that experiencing a product or seeing it demonstrated live increases their comfort level when purchasing. 

But where should you start? 

Consider the following steps.

1. Define the objective. The first question pharma and biotech manufacturers must ask when approaching healthcare professional digital advertising initiatives is “Why do we want to do it?” Your ad strategy must have a clear purpose and by defining the “why” you can better pinpoint what that purpose is. In this instance you want to drive interest in a product through a sample request.
2. Measure throughout the process.  Once the purpose is determined you need to develop baseline metrics for your expected results, and ensure that the metrics you use align with your goals.  Let’s say your sample request form conversion is 42%.  You could leverage multichannel marketing and personalized advertising to increase your sample request form conversion rate to 50%.  You could also like define “two new prescribers” as a quantifiable objective. You could also target a 2% increase in NrX by the end of the 90-day campaign.
3. Set a time frame.  You need to consider the duration of your ad campaign.  You may measure the form conversion rate against a 60-day digital advertising campaign, and the new prescriber metric against a 90-day follow-on nurture campaign.
4. Plan. Develop a project plan for your digital ads just like you would for any other marketing communication project.  The project plan should detail the tasks, resources, schedules, constraints, and costs necessary to achieve the objective.  In this case, the project should contain the deliverables for both the inbound digital ad campaign, and the educational nurture path.
5. Be specific about your target audience.  For example, your target audience could consist of cardiologists in Chicago who were detailed in the last 30 days. 
6. Get personal. Content should contain personalized messaging relative to the HCPs digital body language.  The campaign communications should follow the 1:3 rule.  There should only be one sales focused communication for every 3 communications delivered.  The other 2 communications should contain KOI content relevant to the HCP’s digital body language.
7. Think across a program. The project doesn’t end at the sample request.  At the completion of the campaign, HCPs will be assigned to the appropriate post-campaign process. 
8. Respect the data. Sampling data will demonstrate the effectiveness, or ineffectiveness of the sample process.  This will allow pharma and biotech manufacturers to better employ the sample process, drive more meaningful engagement, and understand the return on their sample investment.

Digital advertising technology exists today that allows you to use business demographics to precisely target ads to your exact audience wherever they travel online. This results in more efficiently spent ad dollars, and gives you the ability to reach more of your target audience, more often, and strategically guide them through the buying cycle from building brand awareness through to driving conversions and sales.

With the economic turmoil of 2008, many life sciences firms were forced to reduce spending across the board.  This spending restriction is still occurring today, and pharma, biotech and medical device firms are forced to do more with less.  One major consequence is a reduction in the sales force.  Combined with decreasing access to health care professionals, this places an added strain on firms where only 56% of prescribers are willing to meet with reps, and that interaction averages only 98 seconds.

Today, e-detailing has come as a welcome solution for sales directors looking to connect with physicians in a more efficient manner, and market access managers looking to enhance the impact of their value communication strategies.

eDetailing is the use of electronic interactive media to facilitate a sales presentation to a doctor.  In the past, a sales rep might have waited hours in a reception room before being offered a brief window to present a product to a physician. Now, with eDetailing, firms can establish brand awareness, increase familiarity, and facilitate sales, using remote marketing that does not always even require a face-to-face meeting.

But much of the eDetailing activity is dependent on inbound HCP activity.  Aside from traditional approaches, how might these companies drive increased HCP inbound activity?  The answer could be, by leveraging an approach commonly used in the life sciences industry.

Pharma, biotech, and medical device manufacturers recognize the value in advertising.  Advertising is a tried and true practice in the pharma space.  But, demonstrating engagement— and return—on advertising has always been difficult.  On average, digital ads only reach 33% of their intended target.  And the more specialized your product or industry, the harder it becomes to reach your intended audience. 

But digital advertising, focused on personalization, leveraging content approval and publishing, and respecting privacy, can aid in solving this problem.  Pharma, biotech, and medical device manufacturers can now better service and educate their audience, understand engagement and interest, and communicate return on advertising investment.  It can deliver inbound results and provide continual pull through a sales cycle.

Let’s say that digital advertising currently leads to 32% of your eDetail opportunities.  You could leverage a combined, holistic, multichannel marketing and personalized advertising approach to increase your inbound eDetail opportunities to a goal of 40%.  You could also target a 2% increase in NrX by the end of a 90-day digital advertising campaign.

These increased results are possible through targeting tools like Eloqua AdFocus and Bizo.  For example, cou can define your target audience as “cardiologists in Chicago”.  They would be served up personalized ads, created specifically for that segment, and based on their individual digital body language.  Activity against the digital ad would drive an HCP to a landing page where they can request an eDetail.  Leveraging eDetailing, this campaign would automate personalized 1:1 communications based on the HCP’s digital body language with both inbound and outbound marketing communications, as well as eDetailing behavior. 

The objective of the campaign is to educate, drive brand awareness, encourage trial enrollment, and ultimately generate new prescriptions.  With multichannel marketing automation tools, companies can deliver the required, and compliant, 1:1 communications across all inbound and outbound communications.  They can also tie this activity back to the individual HCP, and the decile conversions.  Companies can finally segment and target their advertising communications, and they can now demonstrate a return on their advertising efforts.

Given the subscription economy trend in manufacturing, and the dependence manufacturers have on partners to drive revenue, there is an increased pressure to focus on relationship selling.   Most manufacturers depend on channel partners for 20% to 100% of their sales volume.  And the emphasis on relationships extends beyond the sale and into partner journey. You must engage throughout the journey.

Below are 6 best practices to drive channel partner engagement.

1. Better leverage product registrations.  Manufacturers and channel partners want to capture information about their customer to better develop the customer relationship.  This information can also allow manufacturers to deliver or receive incentives.  It’s important that you work with your channel partners to collect this data.  To collect this information, and deliver additional value, you should considerautomating a product registration campaign.
2. Automate welcome campaigns to your channel partners.  The objective of a partner welcome campaign is to drive channel engagement through nurturing and onboarding.  The campaign should leverage educational content, product launches, and other manufacturer driven marketing initiatives.  Incorporate satisfaction surveys into your campaign to better understand the effectiveness of your channel partner program.  The campaign journey and content delivery should be determined by the engagement of each contact.
3. Introduce an advocacy program.  Advocacy programs, like those supported byInfluitive, allow you to identify existing channel advocates, enhance relationships, obtain feedback on products and services, and identify future opportunities.  Consider incorporating an advocacy program into your partner marketing strategy. You could even have a program specifically for end users, and one specifically for channel partners
4. Deliver content based on partner behavior.   Manufacturers understand that the best way to engage with their partners is by providing useful content.  Content can include blogs, technical documentation, photographs, instructional videos, and customer testimonials.  It’s necessary for a company to understand their brand message, and develop and share content that aligns with that message.  But even a content library brimming with innovation is useless if the content is not delivered to the right person, at the right time in their journey.  Allow the Digital Body Language of the partner to dictate which content they receive, and when. Dell perfected their customer experience using this best practice and increased click through rates 3X.
5. Use analytics as a barometer for existing engagement, and as a tool for uncovering new engagement opportunities.   In order to enhance revenue and profit, Manufacturers must uncover new opportunities through contact acquisition and targeted promotions.  Identify trends in content effectiveness, partner success, and geographic opportunity.  Include engagement data into your persona development.  Use this analytic output to guide your decision making.   This information can also be used when deciding how to convert unknown visitors, where to invest with channel partners, and what products provide the greatest opportunity for revenue.
6. Enable your channel.  Become easier to do business with externally.  Provide sales tools that allow your partners to deliver timely and relevant communications.  Develop scoring models that focus partner efforts where they’re needed most.  Create 2-way transparency so partners can identify revenue opportunities and respond to the needs of the user, and so you can better understand the return on your partner investments.

By implementing these engagement best practices into your channel partner strategies you can feel confident that your partners will engage throughout the journey and your funnel will remain full. 

Hi!

I am looking into my possible forwarders and possible email forwards and pulled the lists of contacts associated with those results. The possible email forwards has 124 people and the possible forwarders has 103. What's the difference? Which list is the actual list of people who possibly forwarded my email?

Thanks!

Brie

Manufacturing often gets a bad rap for being outdated, blue collar, and technologically challenged.  But when you walk through the doors of Balluff, and into their open floor plan with clean lines and white walls, that misconception flies out their large scenic window.  But it's not just the building that bucks that manufacturing stereotype, it's also Balluff's approach to technology.  Balluff was an early adopter of marketing automation technology.  Not just when compared to other manufacturers, but an Eloqua customer since 2007, Balluff was a very early marketing automation adopter compared across all industries.  I had the opportunity to spend the day with them and learn about some of their most successful projects, and greatest lessons learned.  As they explained "We had leads, but we couldn't give them away".  Through the following practices, they've fixed that problem.

1.  Traceability Program:  Balluff manufacturers a myriad of products, but when selling their system level products the sales cycle can extend 14-16 months.  A campaign that extends only 3 months will not provide the educational nurturing required to sustain the sales cycle.  Balluff invested a great deal of planning and resources into developing their traceability program.  This was such a focus of the organization that it was written into the business objectives for last fiscal year.  By leveraging content developed by their internal experts, white papers, and their blog, Balluff developed a campaign that meets the requirements of those customers considering system level purchases.

2.  Personalized Newsletters:  Balluff's sales force was the face of the organization.  Customers and partners were reliant on their reps for information.  Balluff was challenged with capturing the digital body language of their customers, while still allowing the sales reps to own those relationships.  By developing a personalized newsletter, Balluff solved this problem.  Using dynamic images and dynamic content, each rep has the ability to customize a templated newsletter with their picture, messaging, and signature.  And because that newsletter comes directly from the sales rep, when a customer replies to the email, the sales rep receives that response.  Marketing now captures the analytics necessary for nurturing and segmentation, and the sales rep has another opportunity to grow the relationship.

3.  Policy and Internal Governance:  A lesson learned early on for Balluff was the need for written policies and governance.  In the past, Balluff had to battle with individuals wanting to purchase lists or buying their own email distribution subscriptions.  To eradicate this issue, Balluff documented policies and governance around list purchase, data usage, email cadence, and distribution.  By documenting these policies in writing, all employees are aware of the policies, and when an issue arises, they can quickly point to the document.

4.  Code Red Distributor Program:  Like most manufacturers, Balluff relies on their channel for revenue.  In order to support their channel network, and bring them into the marketing fold, they developed their Code Red Distributor Program.  Through the development of channel assets, like microsites and emails, Balluff can manage their channel activities within the same instance as their direct customers, but still segment appropriately.

5.  Opportunity Outside of Traditional Digital Communications:  Balluff utilizes marketing communication channels like trade shows and events, digital and print advertising, and gated content.  But they also recognized the opportunity to leverage another communication source, their technical support team.  Customer support calls are logged into a database.  The marketing team then segments that data and sends a follow-up email with a link to a survey form.  That survey data is captured against the contact record.  By capturing this information, Balluff can further segment and personalize communications to improve the customer experience.

Through continuous testing and analysis, Balluff continues to uncover communication opportunities that enhance the customer experience, align internal departments, and grow revenue.

To learn more about some of the other successes Balluff has had, check their Markie nomination for Extraordinary Email.