Their previous video went viral on youtube.

They’ve restructured their approach to their music and the market. But someone still talked them into doing this great Rube Goldberg contraption as an alternative video to their new release.

I think they are interesting artists. Hope it goes well for them.

Here’s BoingBoing’s take on the video.

Here’s the video.

It’s probably data quality — labor intensive, behind the scenes stuff.

Good data is like jet fuel. The plane is beautiful and lovingly engineered, and it’s the part that the users actually see. But that gorgeously branded vehicle isn’t going anywhere without some liquid nourishment under the hood.

Kudos to by Ben Bradley at Macon Raine for describing a common phenomenon: focusing on everything but the data. Data quality is about (1) figuring out who we want to talk with (segmentation), then (2) databasing all the important things we know about this customer, so we can reach them with interesting information they might want, and (3) maintaining this data consistently forever.

Here’s what I’d add to Ben’s recommendations about CRM data quality.

• A task you give to interns can get done well, if it’s managed. Position a task to them as menial and unimportant, and why would you think they’d perform it with diligence and integrity? Whether you’re delegating data quality to interns, temps, vendors, or tech savvy staffers, show respect toward the work you’re asking them to do. It’s only unglamorous if you say it is.
• Data integrity isn’t obvious to the uninitiated. Plan to invest quality time with the people who are going to fix and maintain it. Explain what the data is, how the CRM/database technology works, and how the data cleanup will affect your customers and company when the data is used. Give them the nickel tour of relational databases and CRM and data hygiene principles. Consider writing up a list of things that need to be done to the data and how you will test it to see if those things have been done. Chaotic data won’t get better unless the people tasked with organizing it have a frame of reference for what success looks like.
• Don’t pay people to do things that technology can do better. Give your data quality intern(s) some automated tools (or ask them to go find some for you) to do things like remove duplicate records and add/correct ZIP+4.
• Data quality will never be a pay-side activity for sales people. Good sales people, in my observation, don’t deal very well with data quality and are too focused on pay-side activities to become better at it. A worthy experiment: give them a person (on staff or outsourced) who’s good with data and say, “Call or email this person when you learn something new that should be updated in your account/contact data.” If the sales person sees value in what you’re using CRM to accomplish, perhaps that’s incentive enough for them to use the resource.

CRM data doesn’t get better until it meets people who understand and love it.

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Is lead nature — who the prospect is — that matters in B2B marketing?

Or what I do to keep in touch and build a relationship — lead nurture — that predicts lead value and conversion to sales opportunity?

Well, it’s both.

Most companies fail to define lead Nature in any but the most basic terms, rendering their efforts at connection stilted at best. Without an ability to carry on an intelligent conversation with your prospects through the various media of your outreach, it doesn’t matter how often you call on them. Your buyers will avoid, reject, and resent your intrusion if you talk at them like you don’t know (or listen to) them.

Many of us also do a perfunctory job (at best) in reaching out to these leads — lead nurture. And with nurture, compelling value helps but even simple consistency (just showing up) makes a notable difference.

This means more homework for marketing projects and plans upfront. And more detailed follow through.

CMOs, how do we make a difference when the available pool of paying customers has shrunk?

In a B2B company of not-unlimited means, it is easy to spend a lot of money on marketing without seeing value for the spend. Here are 4 spends that are limited, scalable, and accountable. Each can drive overall company growth, short term revenue, or both.

Target Customer analysis > G2. What characteristics, beliefs, business problems, firmographics do our best customers have in common? How predictive are these traits that another company could be a good customer?

Demand generation. Who else might be similar to our target customer(s)? Where might we find & meet them? What offers and approaches will draw their interest?

Relationship nurturing. How do we better get to know the people in our target customer universe — including our existing customers:?

Strategic communication. Who are our stakeholders (including current and potential customers, investors, and employees)? What do our stakeholders want and need to know? How can we become the source of that information?

They won’t remember our ads. They don’t want to learn what we want them to believe about our products, services, company, quality… they want us to tell them how our stuff solves their problem.

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To get anything done in a B2B complex sale, you’re not just Selling to The Senior Executive Wo/Man.

That’s why it’s complex.

It’s tempting, especially for salespeople, to depend on just a single contact, champion, or coach inside the client company. Giving in to this temptation? Watch for l-o-n-n-n-g sales cycles, clients who won’t make decisions, endless RFPs, and surprise announcements that you won’t be getting the business.

What do you need when your business depends on successfully influencing communities?

In addition to great sales people and great sales infrastructure, marketing processes that are…

• Patient. Sales isn’t supposed to be patient — there’s a qualified deal on the table. Marketing has to find potential and study it, monitor it, listen for cues, compare what’s happening in this deal with others. Its processes (and the technology infrastructure behind them) need to enforce and support patience.
• Iterative. Does your team do something more than once? On purpose? That’s the mentality necessary to learn. If you’re trying to influence a complex ecosystem (multiple people, teams, business units), then launch a program or tactic assuming that you’re going to learn something new, which will necessitate additional change to the program. Which brings us to…
• Listening. Only the customer really knows what influence them. Not always can (or will) they tell you. Marketing processes in a complex sale enforce and support the effort to listen for customer cues.

If your marketing processes (and by extension your technology infrastructure) don’t support test-listen-measure-repeat, then let’s not kid ourselves — you won’t do it. You don’t have time.

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