Architecting a Federal Government Data Strategy

 Data Acquisition, List Intelligence, List Management, Marketing  No Responses »
Dec 052012
 

Designing a federal government demand creation strategy presents data concerns.  The biggest challenge facing marketers is identifying and isolating target contacts.  Many large databases are weak in their ability to delineate federal from state and local contacts, and although the government trade publications have good coverage of the market, they offer broad job function segmentation.  Most marketers tend to accept this limitation, resulting in non-targeted campaigns or in some cases, reaching institutions outside of federal government.

You don’t have to accept weak data.  Oceanos can help you overcome your data challenges and give you a competitive edge.

The first step in designing a data strategy is the development of a robust prospect definition; you must first highlight the characteristics associated with the target agencies and then define the types of contacts to reach.  Oceanos’ objective is to build a named account list with the institution’s demographics, domain and any valuable business intelligence.   Contact identification is imperative because the market for technology products in federal government is diverse.  Although contacts can be categorized based on your unique marketing approach, the default groups are:

  • Decision Makers
  • Influencers
  • End Users

To facilitate job title identification we recommend job title mapping, an analysis that is critical in the identification of the optimal job titles and key words for segment mapping.   The next step is the creation of the balanced data portfolio, which is necessary to ensure repeatable demand creation.  An Oceanos federal government data strategy includes twenty to forty different sources.  When architecting a data strategy, we seek to leverage the strengths of each data source to produce a custom solution that provides a competitive marketing advantage.

There are  five data types within a scalable data strategy:

  • Perpetual crowd-sourced data feeds provide you access to the full contact record.  Oceanos’ List Optimizer is synched to these sources, including crowd sourced providers and select publishers.
  • Perpetual research-based data provides various levels of intelligence to assist sales executives that are actively selling into government institutions.
  • Rental lists include both vertical and horizontal source and are derived from trade publications, associations, show attendees and communities.
  • Leased data allows you to receive the data directly to support predefined nurturing strategies via your internal marketing automation platform.
  • Federal government business intelligence is primarily sourced from RFP’s and outbound calling programs.  This intelligence can be procured and released directly to assist in segmentation, prioritization and messaging.

Oceanos can serve as the Data Acquisition Hub for all public sector units.  We can assist in establishing standards for all third party data acquisition.  Centralization of the data acquisition will provide your company immediate cost efficiencies and will minimize the procurement of poor quality or duplicate data across business units.

View our List Intelligence Brief:  Architecting a Federal Government Data Strategy at http://youtu.be/5pt7zpwtNAw.  For more information on how Oceanos can help you overcome data challenges associated with federal government, please contact Brian Hession, President & Founder of Oceanos at bhession@oceanosinc.com

 

 

 Posted by at 11:31 am  Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

Oceanos Celebrates 10th Anniversary

 Data Acquisition, Lead Generation, List Acquisition, List Intelligence, List Management, Marketing  No Responses »
Nov 072012
 

On November 8th, Oceanos will celebrate it’s 10th Anniversary – a milestone for our company!   We’ve come a long way from our original start in Marshfield 2002.  From those humble beginnings, Oceanos has thrived and grown into an industry leader in database marketing.  We’ve evolved as a research and advisory firm that designs data strategies to support all types of demand creation strategies.  Our solutions are powered by proprietary List Optimizer™ technology and smart, focused people.   We view ourselves as data consultants, akin to an investment firm, but rather than stocks we analyze data.  This includes both traditional list sources along with all types of business intelligence.

Sales and marketing organizations look to us to architect a data portfolio that aligns to their prospect definition, is scalable and will drive returns.  The expertise we provide is not just selecting data source A over B, but rather the ability to combine pieces of data, from a multitude of sources resulting in a solution that is stronger than the sum of its parts.  It’s maximizing data utility to support both contact prioritization and the ability to segment and align messaging to tightly defined audiences.  This is List Intelligence™  and our blue chip client roster is the proof that we deliver results.

Over the years, we are proud to report that Oceanos has received numerous business and industry accolades including articles in the “Boston Business Journal” as well as being named to “Inc. Magazine’s” Fastest Growing Private Company list for three consecutive years.  Our impressive client roster includes blue chip clients such as Iron Mountain, Autodesk, Bloomberg, Citrix, CA Technologies and Lenovo.   Thank you to all our clients for helping make Oceanos a success.

As Oceanos approaches its 10th anniversary, we are more confident now than ever that our intellectual capital and technology has created a very special company.  To learn more about Oceanos can provide you with a unique data strategy, view our new video: http://youtu.be/zcOiTM30_W4

If you are interested in learning how Oceanos can optimize your demand creation activities, feel free to contact Brian Hession, President and Founder at bhession@oceanosinc.com

 

 Posted by at 10:45 am  Tagged with: , , , ,

Oceanos Case Study on how Global PC Maker Leverages “Competitive Intelligence” To Drive Response

 List Intelligence  No Responses »
Mar 202012
 

A global technology company was seeking to build brand awareness and drive response from within the computer-aided design and engineering audience (CAD/CAE).

CHALLENGE: IDENTIFY ENGINEERS BY CAD/CAE SOFTWARE BRAND

The client built individual portals for leading CAD/CAE brands including Dassault Systemes, PTC, Siemens PLM and Autodesk. The campaign objective was to drive design and product engineers to one of the four CAD/CAE portals via a series of impactful email creative designed by the client’s creative agency that featured brand specific messaging. For example, the subject line for targeting SolidWorks users read, “SolidWorks – 5 Greatest Performance Challenges.” Since messaging referenced the specific CAD/CAE brand, accurate audience segmentation was imperative.

SOLUTION: TARGET ACCOUNT BASED LIST STRATEGIES SUPPORTED BY COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE

Oceanos designed a data asset allocation strategy comprised of a list portfolio that included pedigree engineering publications, communities and societies. To acquire the software install intelligence, Oceanos aggregated data from a myriad of sources including annual reports, news releases, trade publications, social media and other online sites. The resulting data was reviewed by Oceanos analysts, standardized and assigned a confidence value. With this competitive intelligence insight, the Oceanos research group was able to develop a named account list for each target CAD/CAE platform. These named accounts were then enhanced with their corresponding email domain and bundled by brand. The resulting domain string was utilized as a “filter” to segment the engineering contact lists. The creative assets were then aligned to the appropriate segment, deployed and tracked.

RESULT: 200% INCREASE IN EMAIL CLICK-THROUGH RATE

The segmentation and content alignment yielded impressive results. As the chart below illustrates, the average click through rate exceeded 3.34% ― nearly triple the average. To maximize the success of this ongoing campaign, individual list performance was evaluated and a full scale list strategy was established to ensure comprehensive reach within the target audience and, more importantly, to minimize list fatigue. The result is a robust, repeatable, demand creation engine.

To find out more about Oceanos, download the updated List Optimizer Ebook at http://www.oceanosinc.com/listoptimizer/

 Posted by at 4:28 pm  Tagged with: , ,

List Optimizer™: Using List Intelligence™ to Optimize Demand Creation

 List Intelligence  No Responses »
Feb 012012
 

With the traditional list business undergoing rapid change, so has the Oceanos proprietary List Optimizer™. This application has provided us with a platform to seamlessly query across a few large, crowd sourced databases. As a result, we have been able to improve segmentation and reach for our client’s target audience.

Over the past two years, we have improved the List Optimizer™ so that it is not just a list building query tool but a system of List Intelligence™ processes for optimizing demand creation and database building programs. The new List Optimizer™ includes Business Intelligence and Executive Intelligence suite. The business intelligence suite is powered by Bureau Van Dijk, a leading business intelligence provider tracking firmagraphics and financials on 24 million companies. We have also made significant investments in the areas of competitive intelligence social media and other custom data feeds. The List Optimizer™ executive suite is focused on identifying your ideal contact names from across an expansive network of approved data sources.

With an internal KnowledgeBank capturing seven years of list performance metrics our data strategies are best-in-class. The Business and Executive Intelligence processes can be adapted to help you overcome the challenges of optimizing, growing and maintaining your database. Many organizations, large and small, are not realizing the potential ROI present within their own data nor do they know how to begin the process to sort this out.

To find out how the List Optimizer™ can:

  • Validate and enhance house records with firmagraphics, job titles, and email addresses
  • Use custom business intelligence to optimize all types of demand creation and database building programs

Download the updated List Optimizer Ebook at http://www.oceanosinc.com/listoptimizer/

 Posted by at 11:43 am  Tagged with: , ,

Oceanos List Trend Analysis: Changes for Quarter 4 2011

 List Intelligence  No Responses »
Nov 212011
 

Each quarter we measure our campaign results using our Knowledge Bank analytics.

Email Metric Performance

We continue to see the “open rate” spiral lower which places downward pressure on the “click through”. It is interesting to note that the “click through” rate over the past five quarters is flat (1.10% – 1.15%). On the contrary, the “click to open” rate spiked 39.3% year over year, settling in at 10.03%.

List Intelligence™

For the fourth consecutive quarter, the “click to open” metric has increased (39.3% Q3 year over year). In comparison to Q2 2011, the uptick was 7.7%. On the front end, the “open rate” continues to slide, dropping to 11.92% this past quarter. So what are the factors contributing to this performance trend? Based on our analysis and discussions with our publisher network, the demand for email rental campaigns has steadily declined in favor of data providers who offer contact records for purchase. As a result, marketers are purchasing contact records with email addresses included and deploying to their audiences at a much higher rate. The result has been a fundamental change in the channel’s overall performance.

 

The good news is the “click to open” metric is clearly indicating that audience targeting and messaging is improving. It is impossible for us to isolate which factor is most responsible for this positve change, but our inclination is audience selection. We recognize that due to our segmentation methodologies the metric has likely been compromised. A large percentage of our email rental strategies are based on named accounts and aligned to optimal job titles. As a result, if the email is opened there is a much higher probability that the recipient will click through to the offer page. We will continue to monitor this trend each quarter.

For additional information, read our Fall 2011 List Intelligence™ Report at: http://www.oceanosinc.com/listintelligence/

 Posted by at 8:48 am  Tagged with: , ,

Diversification: How to Mitigate Risk and Cost for List Acquisition

 List Acquisition, List Intelligence  No Responses »
Oct 272011
 

As companies invest heavily in the development of a smooth flowing, continuous sales pipeline, the need to find your audience and engage them with inviting content is critical.  But alas, a new challenge has come to the front: 

  • Who has the contacts you need?
  • Do they have all that you need or just some?
  • If they have some, how do you get just what you want and need?
  • If you just take what you need, are you going to pay a premium?
  • Is this new premium cost going to make targeting your audience an expensive all in gamble that you are willing to take?

There is no single database that will provide you anywhere near full access to your target audience.  According to a recent IDC CMO Advisory study, the most frequently used data vendors are Dun & Bradstreet, Hoovers, and Jigsaw.  If you have experience with these providers, you know each offer unique strengths and weaknesses.  Even combining all three will, in most cases, reach only a portion of a target audience.  It’s easy for these providers to position themselves as a complete solution, but you know it’s impossible.  To make the analogy to the stock market, would you risk all your retirement assets to one stock?  Does Enron or WorldCom sound familiar?

Your list provider should never lock you into any one “guaranteed” data solution.  Seek a provider that can provide you access to a diverse portfolio of list sources.  Ask your provider who their competitors are?  If they site competitive data providers, you might be limiting yourself because they will certainly not include their competitors within your list strategy.  Make sure you have the flexibility to adjust to changes in the market.  Lastly, ensure that your costs are controlled and your solution provider is focused on the performance metrics that are important to you.

List Optimizer vs Competition

At Oceanos, we deliver List Intelligence™ combined with a data asset allocation model.  Our list analysts design diversified list portfolios via our proprietary software, List Optimizer™ and KnowledgeBanks.  Our solution leverages only the “prime” cuts of data from mulitiple sources.  This combined offering delivers cost certainty and risk mitigation to maximize your return on investment.

For additional information, read our List Intelligence Report at:  http://www.oceanosinc.com/listintelligence/

 

 Posted by at 8:20 am  Tagged with: , ,

Welcome to the List Intelligence™ Blog!

 Lead Generation  No Responses »
Oct 112011
 

We are excited to announce our new blog as a venue for discussion around industry trends in lead generation and demand creation marketing. As the marketing industry matures and evolves, we are excited to move into this new phase of building a community discussion and staying at the forefront of trends. Subscribe to our blog for updates from thought leaders in the demand generation field.

We launched Oceanos ten years ago with the vision of providing marketers with ”List Intelligence™” to optimize their demand creation programs. In 2010, we took another big leap forward with the launch of List Optimizer™, our proprietary software that creates list strategies to support all types of demand creation and database building programs.

In addition, our Data Asset Management Group now partners with select clients to provide risk mitigation, diversification and cost certainty strategies to ensure data investment optimization.  We are able to build custom data sets with unmatched precision and reach.

Have any suggestions on what’d you like to see here? Leave us a comment!

 Posted by at 8:26 am  Tagged with: , ,
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