Know-How Exchange : Research/Metrics

Hi, Valerie --

It sounds to me like your company doesn't have the infrastructure to "perfectly" capture the results from using Thomas, but you can do a "decent enough" job of getting there. The key might be to avoid overcomplicating the process.

1. If your gut tells you that Thomas is worth a try, then do it.
2. Instruct your salespeople to ask customers (especially new ones) how they found your product/company, and create a simple tally sheet they can mark; you can collect those numbers from them every week (by paper or email, whatever's easiest).
3. Yes, you probably can and should use your existing web analytics tool to see how many site visitors are referred from the Thomas site. No extra coding necessary.
4. Thomas certainly must have a report they can deliver showing internal traffic to your product or profile page.
5. Finally, and most importantly, notice whether your overall sales numbers increasing or not.

So... I wouldn't get too hung up on systematically tying a sale to a Thomas referral. I think you can look at the overall trends mentioned in items 4-5 determine whether the service is worthwhile!

- Shelley

Valerie,

It appears that my colleagues have given you some great advice. Shelley has given you part of my response but that's what you should expect from her (she's smart).

I think you may have some other problems other than ROI. Calculating ROI is not that difficult and having spent over 10 years in sales I've been in similar trails with upper management. Here are some suggestions.

WIN ONE PERSON FROM UPPER MANAGEMENT
When I had a similiar problem like this when my upper managers did not want to fork over the cash for me to join some auxilary groups like the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce I had to go after winning one person at a time.

RELATIONSHIPS MAKE SELLING EASIER
This one relationship with my VP of sales made all the difference. It took me nearly four months before I recognized that all I needed was to sell just one person out of the three upper managers and that would do it.

PROVEN TRACK RECORDS ARE BETTER THAN PROVING ROI's
When I finally got a chance to sell this one upper manager I showed him my track record. My sales were way above margin and my closing average above 85% made a huge difference too. After I reviewed my past sales records for the last six months with the VP of Sales he saw the light. The ROI was leveraged off of my track record.

TAKE YOUR BEST SALES PERSONS TRACK RECORD
Find a couple of your best sales people and ask them to look at the site. If they feel confident that they could successfully turn over leads from a source such as the website you have listed above sell this to management. If they are concerned about ROI the only other thing that will easy their fearful souls would be successful men put in place to make this endeavour a successful project.

If you have any additional questions about ROI I can talk to you about that specifically but I like to suggest things that may shoot straight through to the root of the problem. What I have shared with you here today will do just that. Now if it works for me it could work for you but be sure the site is worth it. (read my profile) My speciality is building customer relationships. Thanks. Is there anything else I can do for you?

Your Servant, Deremiah, *CPE (Customer Passion Evangelist)

Plan B looks like my earlier post... with emphasis on steps 2 through 5. (I accidentally said 4-5 earlier. Ignore that.) And more detail on how you'd do those steps.

Plan A might include the tactics that people have described in this thread (plus your own ideas). Sorry to redeliver their messages, but here goes --

Peter: "Tracking to sale - you can do that with your web site on any leads that come from here to your web site. It would take adding some code to your site, and setting up the URL which you list at there site to trigger this code."

Justin: "There are programs in place (hitbox) that put a TON of javascript on pages for tracking. This will track the user from the referring site all the way to confirmation of sale. If you already have a log analysis program, such as Urchin, you can simple deploy a cookie scheme to track the conversions."

JStiles: "[A]dd a web page and phone number for your biz... Both can be used exclusively for the tested service. With the web page (landing page from their site click-through) you will be able to track traffic and identify leads to follow through the sales process. You could track inbound calls and identify the leads fro internal tracking as well. I think most phone carriers offer a stat service for business lines."

Zahid: "You need to assign a place/person where the orders and their details are collated centrally... You can setup a simple excel spreadsheet and enter an order number, value, account, source, etc and you'll be able to generate a very simple graph..."

Peter or Justin might be able to describe in more detail what has to be implemented to track the "actionable" traffic from ThomasNet. Or it might be a question worth posing back to that sales rep. (Surely you're not the only customer who wants to do this.)

Now, some strategic advice about managing your manager:

Tell him that Plan A might be a way to lay the foundation for tracking marketing ROI overall, not just for the ThomasNet project. Ask him what else he's been thinking about measuring as the company gets closer to implementing the Cycle of Success. You can do this because you're genuinely interested, not because you're trying to pose a political threat.

Follow Deremiah's suggestions when it comes to the relationships! ;]

If I were in your shoes, I'd make this a problem for the vendor (the thomasnet.com salesperson). Tell them it's hard for you to justify the expenditure without some way to track results. They should be highly motivated to help you. (I would be, if I were selling their service.)

I've learned over the years that when you are looking for a way to justify something to upper management, it's a sign that the justification is vague to begin with. After all, if YOU were convinced it was a great idea, you could simply share the facts that convinced you with your management.

My guess is that the sales rep for thomasnet.com is playing a numbers game. The more people he calls on the more he's likely to sell. If you offer a legitimate objection (like "help me justify this") and he/she has an answer, maybe it's worth a shot. If they run away and look for an easier mark (i.e., one who doesn't ask hard questions), then you've probably saved yourself from an unproductive investment.

That's my take on the situation. Hope it helps.