Best Practices in Building a Marketing Database - Stacey Ho, CPSM

Stacey Ho, CPSM – Marketing Projects Administrator, Kennedy/Jenks Consultants

Stacey Ho, CPSM – my friend, and now my new best database friend. I am a “power user” in her terminology. And I learned SO much from her session on Best Practices in Building a Marketing Information Database. At the beginning, there was a little preaching to the choir. Recognizing that most of us marketers are not always in a position to make the decisions about databases, Stacey acknowledged we are probably in the best position to know if needed a system like this to make our lives easier. What we need are tips/tricks on how to convince the decision-makers.

Marketing Information – Sally Hanley refers to Intellectual Capital. What is it, why is it important?

It’s the project descriptions, the people, how the people interacted with the clients. We don’t have capital as a product, we have intellectual capital. The better we maintain and have a handle over our intellectual capital, the bigger/better projects we can win.

Why wouldn’t you update your resume and project information?? This is what WINS US WORK. This is treasured information.

Why?

·         Had to go to the last proposal to find information

·         Had an engineer tell you, “I sent that to you already”

·         Had someone say “That was in a proposal in 2009… go find it”

·         As soon as someone moves away, the institutional knowledge goes away

·         Kennedy/Jenks – 90-year old company, no database ever. Stacey made the case to create one, and they committed to hire her specifically to set one up.

·         Every office had different information, different resumes, different styles. Major efforts requiring multiple offices were a time-suck, trying to make everything look the same. Had excuses NOT to develop database.

·         The reality was, in the new economy, we couldn’t afford to spend hours and hours to reformat resumes. We had to standardize, and fast.

For success…

·         Multi-group collaboration

·         Software selection

·         Scheduling and implementation

·         Combining technology, people, and process

·         Internal communication/PR

Multi-group collaboration

Take more than 2 people. You need an advocate in accounting and IT, leadership, users. In the beginning, it will feel like a really awkward dance. These people do not usually talk about marketing/data collection. Give some time and keep talking.

A little like eating a hot dog with chopsticks.

·         The people are the bun – boss, bosses boss, IT, accounting, marketing team

·         Technology – hot dog – software, integration, familiarity, support

·         Process – the mustard – a lot of people don’t like mustard – existing or new, familiar or unfamiliar

·         If only a few people using, that’s ok. And they more they talk about it, the more users you will get. Eventually you get enough people, you pretty much force usage of the database for everyone.

Software Selection

·         Several ways – partner with current provider; go with a new software provider; go it alone and create one. What will your users be comfortable with? What will your users actually USE? What can you afford? What is your firm ready for? It doesn’t matter what software system you select, it HAS to work for your firm. Is it easy to maintain? Is it easy to update? Are there other users you can talk to? Can you use something you already have and improve it? Or improve the process?

Schedule/Implementation

·         You buy it, and people want it instantly to work.

·         Do some research – how long does it really take? Takes different amount of time depending on how much effort you want to put in. Hire data entry people? Import from an existing database? Starting from scratch?

·         What results do the top people who are supporting you expect to see?

·         What schedule (upfront) can you set up to help meet those expectations?

Steps to going “live”

·         Administrator training

·         Test database/data – where does information go, is there a place for everything, how does it come out

·         Reverse proposal planning – where does everything go, how does it come back out

·         Custom templates – had to set standards

·         Customized training guides – how to (step by step) import, export, search, etc. Really make sure users are comfortable

·         Live marketer training

·         Hired help – initially, said they would do it all ourselves (internal data entry); hired out; was a turning point for us – in six months, got TONS of data in.

·         Continued training and support – with dedicated manager (Stacey) could continue to answer questions and offer help; if you don’t have a dedicated person, create a “power user” so that folks have a go-to person

·         Prepare yourself – implementation and change takes time – keep going back to the initial schedule and remind them what is involved; or if they want to speed up the schedule, commit the resources (hire help)

“Don’t confuse having the systems with using them. With technology, possession isn’t 9/10^th of the law.” – Susan Cramm, Harvard Business Review

The big elephant in the room – PROCESS

·         You’ll spend time talking about software, and the data entry, and then you fall back on the way you used to do things. Need to spend a LOT of time talking about the process – HOW are you going to get new data, updating data, who will do what… Often tied to operating processes, marketers having time, is it mandatory/voluntary…

·         You get all the way to the point of implanting the software, and there is some data in it, but you haven’t changed your processes about how to get the data IN it from that point forward. Have to convert the administrators into believing that they hold the key to marketing – they often “touch” the project at the points when data needs to be entered.

More on process –

·         Had to “change the channel” – had to stop doing what we had been doing.

·         Had hard copy file information about the projects, and marketing didn’t even know it!

So process considerations –      

                                                                                OR

Collect at the project open/close                                              Create whole new process

Modify existing forms                                                                    Create all new forms

Start at the marketer                                                                     Start at the PM

Make it mandatory                                                                         Make it optional

Building review and accountability                                           Have voluntary input and/or review

What forms are they ALREADY using? Can you just add a couple of questions to what they are already doing? Talk to Accounting/Operations

And you CAN change in steps. For example, you could start as optional… then move to mandatory as the need/value is known.

Chose to rely pretty heavily on our marketing staff (Marketing Machine)

·         When we first started this process, we weren’t doing that many proposals

·         Now have modified collection process

·         Marketer is primarily responsible for collection and input – we also back them up. You are responsible to put in 10 resumes in 10 weeks, 2 project descriptions in 2 months; schedule it; and if someone takes that time away, have them report to Manager/Leader…

·         Input is still voluntary, with assistance and guidance (hired help; and could hire help again as marketers become busy)

·         Picked a date and move forward. (Not need 1990s info, pick 200? Forward)

·         Create a process to return updates/changes to the system – part of post-proposal check list

Internal Branding Strategies Paid Off

·         At company-wide meeting, Stacey set up booth; demonstration; a lot of branding, PR, press releases, updated iShare; internal advisory committee made up “nay-sayers”

·         Didn’t keep it a secret – kept it open and active

·         Made info accessible to everyone in the company

·         Posted resumes in un-changeable format on intranet. Got calls instantly to fix them

·         Hosted internal meetings on the database – educate the firm on the value of intellectual capital

·         Demonstrate solution benefits – consistencies, expanded search, and cost savings

·         Promised that if a marketer gets new information for a proposal, it WOULD get in to the database.

·         Create an awareness for everyone – not just those involved in marketing

Key decisions

·         Software provider partnership

·         Set standards firmwide where we never had them

·         All-company roll-out – wasn’t going to pick a region, test it, tell me how it’s going; I said I’d teach this 7 times in 7 different locations, and from last training on, we were “live”; overwhelmed with questions BUT got early input on what the system needed, and was able to course correct

·         Did in-person training; there’s just some training you have to do hands-on with me in the room

·         Intentionally selected a slower schedule – 18 months –

Had a lot of successes

·         Centralized the data for all office access

·         Means less interruption with requests from other offices

·         The internal portals, where everyone could see the data, was a big hit

·         Export into set templates for more consistency – and can change it ONCE, and update/change the brand company wide, instantly.

Risks = Rewards

·         Marketer-led program increased user acceptance [not IT person; IT will see it as a risk]

·         Dedicated staff kept the project on track

·         Realistic scheduling drove continued support

·         Going live with limited initial data – enabled feedback and speed to market – issue was living in “two worlds” – the old world, and the new world, and the new world didn’t have a lot of data

·         Firmwide roll-out and hands-on training fostered momentum and support

·         Investing in training and support eased user fears – was important to users

·         Internal communication facilitated acceptance of change

Lessons Learned

Given enough thrust, even pigs can fly. (You need support, and consistent leadership.)

·         Training matters

·         Historical data can be overwhelming

·         A firmwide rollout is challenging

·         Mandatory vs. voluntary is never an easy choice

·         The administrator’s job never ends

·         Changing a corporate culture takes time

·         People get excited when they see what it can do!

·         You’re not going to have every piece of data for every project – is what you have better than what you had before? Then that is a success!

·         Companywide – not everyone can edit the database, and that’s ok.

·         Accounting would put in an “anticipated end date,” but they didn’t update it. So marketing had a separate field with the “real” end date.

Still trying to sustain momentum

·         Busy marketers in touch economic times; short on marketing staff

·         Rapidly changing technology and keeping up with updates – especially if you are adding modules (CRM, opportunities/leads) Just because you have the whole system, doesn’t mean you have to use the whole system.

·         The “when is the project done” syndrome – this is NEVER done

·         Break it down into manageable steps for users

·         Internal support/users group – how to support each other; celebrate success

I am inspired. I don't hace any desire to redesign our database, but I think I have some (cool?) ideas for processes in getting the data IN to the database. Hm... Look out, coworkers... :)