Ecosystems, not channels
The value of force multipliers
I’ve been thinking about and using the term “ecosystem” a lot lately.
Merriam-Webster defines an ecosystem as:
“something (such as a network of businesses) considered to resemble an ecological ecosystem especially because of its complex interdependent parts”
Stop and take a second to re-read the last 3 words of that definition. “complex interdependent parts"
But here’s the deal - for years I viewed business growth strategy as a series of complex independent parts - and that was one of the biggest mistakes learnings I’ve had so far in my career.
Some quick background
Decades ago, marketers, advertisers + sales executives intuitively understood this. That’s why the most spend frequently went to ad campaigns on TV, radio, and print.
Fast forward to today and we have data on top of data on top of data and leadership that wants proof if something is working because of the need to be “data-driven.” Not saying this is bad by any means (I’m one of the biggest data nerds you’ll ever meet), but what I am saying is there’s a time and place to be data-driven and a time and place to remember that the other half of the science-part of marketing is the art of it. And that’s the part where magic happens with business results if we don’t box ourselves in.
The rise of attribution
If you’re reading this newsletter, I don’t have to explain what attribution is to you or review the good/bad of it that you already see in the LinkedIn feed ad nauseam. But I want to show a few screenshots of two attribution platforms to help paint a picture of where I’m heading with this newsletter.
What do you notice about the tables shown in these examples?
That it’s broken out by marketing channels? That it shows funnel performance based on where a lead came from? That it “ranks” which channels are good/bad?
Now, what don’t you notice about the tables shown in these examples?
How the channels interplay with one another
I’m using Dreamdata + HockeyStack as two examples because they’re two well-known attribution platforms. And they’re great platforms, too. So I’m not sharing them as examples of something done poorly, I’m sharing them as examples so that those of you reading this who use these platforms can start thinking through how to get even more out of them.
Going back to Dreamdata in the above example, you can see it does an incredible job of mapping out the journey of an account to becoming a customer. Things like: when they hit key milestones, channels engaged with along the way, who was involved from the accounts, and more. Incredible data to have.
But here are the questions I want to know as a go-to-market (GTM) leader:
What happens as part of the overall journey if one of these datapoints does/doesn’t occur?
Do we win more/less? Faster/slower? Higher/lower deal size?
How do the order of the activities impact one another?
Are BDRs more successful in keeping a prospect on the phone if they’ve seen multiple ads before? Are marketing emails more likely to be read if they’ve had a peer talk about us in a community before?
Are previous touchpoints helping or hurting the likelihood of the next one to be successful?
If they’re served an ad that drives them to a gated asset and they don’t want to fill out the form, are they less likely to click on an ad the next time because they’ll assume it’s gated as well? If they had a pushy AE calling them last year and a new one calls them this year, are they more likely to be defensive on the call and less open to exploring?
The rise of the ecosystem
Sam Jacobs shared in a post a few weeks ago that “People don’t make decisions because of one touch point. They make decisions based on a preponderance of touch points.”
This led to Emir Atli writing a follow-up post telling a story about a customer they’d recently closed. Attribution showed that they came in as “Direct,” but they had data from the previous 9 months’ journey on all that had occurred:
LinkedIn ad impressions
LinkedIn ad engagements
Website page views
Emails opened and replied to
Individuals from the company who engaged with the website + on social media
But those are just the “trackable” points.
What about things like…
Conversations with BDRs and AEs
Conversations with their peers
Podcasts listened to
Videos watched on YouTube
Organic social media views and engagements
The list goes on and on…
How did those play into the journey? Unfortunately, these (and so many other touch points) simply aren’t trackable so we’ll never know. But you better bet they’re highly impactful to driving the outcome you’re after.
So when I think about ecosystems, here’s what I think about:
An ecosystem means all of these various touchpoints, from trackable to untrackable, work in harmony with one another to foster and drive the desired outcome. Ecosystems die if you remove certain aspects of them, or if they have too much of something, as there are upward and downward impacts of that element’s presence.
Force multipliers in ecosystems
This is the hardest part to get right. This is the difference between a company reaching $100M in revenue in 5 years vs. 20 years. This is the importance of hiring GTM leaders who understand the interplay between their teams vs. wanting 100% credit for a deal.
The biggest unlock for me with the ecosystem approach was watching previously “additive” channels become force multipliers for one another. I’ll explain:
For years I operated with the “additive” mindset.
What happens if we hire 2 more BDRs?
What happens if we add $10k more to ad spend?
What happens if we start advertising on [social media platform]?
What happens if we run a webinar every month?
And then I would simply map out the anticipated ROI of that effort and add it to the current expected outcomes. Hence additive.
Force multipliers
Then things changed. Seeing outcomes of some of the questions posed earlier, like “Are BDRs more successful in keeping a prospect on the phone if they’ve seen multiple ads before?” I understood that the impact didn’t come from having more ads running or more BDRs making calls.
It came from the interplay between them.
Did the ad help the prospect to understand who we are, what we do, and how that applies to them? Did the ad leave them with a positive association or feeling about us? Did they view us as an organization that genuinely wants to help them be successful in their role?
Did the BDR use that same messaging or tone when they called? Did they continue that feeling of showing that they’re invested in the prospect being successful, regardless of if they buy our product/service?
Ads alone can only do so much.
Calls alone can only do so much.
But when used together, in a well-planned manner, is what takes these from being “additive” channels to force multipliers for one another.
The most successful companies moving forward will be building ECOSYSTEMS. They’ll be using attribution and data to understand the interplay between all of their GTM efforts vs. trying to understand which singular channel they should be investing more/less in because of an attribution model assigning credit to it.
One LinkedIn post I bookmarked this week
Yes, this is my CEO’s post.
No, this series wasn’t my idea. No, I didn’t ask him to do this. No, he didn’t ask me to include this in this newsletter.
But I couldn’t be happier or more proud to WANT to include it in this newsletter. I absolutely love this series he thought up and how he’s playing it out. We’re creating a new category. We’re trying to convince a massive market to use a different (and better) way to do their jobs. And that means lots of educating, showing, and getting ahead of “the way it’s always been done”.
So Matt’s journey to sharing the top 100 reasons why a Talent Intelligence Platform (new category) will replace the ATS (existing, well-known category) has been a masterclass so far in founder-led marketing.
Parenting tip I learned this week
Our little one LOVES Ms Rachel. It’s almost unfair how quick she is to smile when she sees her and then wonder why I don’t get that ear-to-ear grin every time she sees me.
But one thing she does NOT love is when Ms Rachel gets interrupted with an ad. If we don’t get to the skip ad button within those first few seconds, it’s game over.
So aside from me recognizing as a marketer that advertising on channels like these on YouTube is the equivalent of burning cash + sharing that on LinkedIn earlier this week, my favorite part came from all of the comments that followed, including the one above.
We’d been using our normal YouTube accounts when we pulled up Ms Rachel. Didn’t think anything of it. So when Trevor shared that YouTube kids doesn’t have ads (unfortunately not 100% true, there are limited ads), you know I was already sold. The fewer the ads, the better (and yes, I recognize that that is 100000% hypocritical of me to say as a marketer).
Anyway, I gave it a shot and 10/10 recommend for other parents who may be in the same boat.
See you next Saturday,
Sam
