Head in the Cloud? Why more plugins and cloud connectors may be making your problem even worse!

Think of the last visit to your doctor. Did you drag your tired, nauseous self into the exam room, plop down on that table with the funny roll of paper and have your doctor immediately proclaim, “I think you’ll need major surgery” before even examining you? Would you maybe ask her to use that stethoscope and those little tongue depressor thingies to perform some basic diagnostics first? Maybe an X-ray or CT scan might be in order before calling in the scalpels? How about a second opinion, doc?

Or how about your car? When you wheel in for your 25,000-mile service, what would you think of your mechanic who says, “Whew! That car’s maroon – it’s going to need a new engine. And new wiper blades.” Would you just keep right on driving until you found a mechanic with the proper diagnostic equipment to evaluate what – if anything – needs adjustment? Of course you would!

While we would never subject our bodies or our vehicles to such ridiculous treatment, it seems we are happy to turn over our Marketing databases and MAP platforms to exactly this kind of treatment! Cloud connectors and plugins seem like such great solutions to problems, they are just irresistible. They are, for the most part, inexpensive, easy to install and run without any human intervention required. What’s not to like about them? Here are a few things to think about.

They mask the real problem
Like taking ibuprofen to reduce a fever when the real problem is an infection that needs treatment before your immune system can no longer battle on its own. If left untreated, the infection can kill you while the ibuprofen artificially reduces the fever your body was using to fight the infection. Likewise, cloud connectors can treat problems to an extent.

Bad data? Get a cloud connector to clean it up. Can’t segment? Get another cloud connector to standardize your data. Need physical addresses? Get yet another cloud connector to pull in addresses based on the browser’s IP address.

Sounds like a great solution to – what was the problem again? Oh, yeah, bad data. And by “bad” I mean incomplete, non-standardized or incorrect data.

They can limit your options

Because they are inexpensive (or sometimes free), cloud connectors and plugins can have standards to which you will have to comply. For example, if you segment geographically by Congressional Districts instead of Area Code, or have a unique target audience that doesn’t use the “standard” organization levels of Manager, Director, VP (etc.), you may be out of luck. The more sophisticated your segmentation, the less likely cloud connectors will completely address your root problem.

They process at different speeds

You may find you have to make accommodations for the speed and/or volume of cloud connector processing. Many have limitations on the number of Contacts processed per unit time, require longer processing cycles than you might expect, or both. Understanding what kind of throughput you require is critical when determining whether or not cloud connector or plugins are a viable solution for you.

What should you consider?

First, you need identify the problem from a business perspective. These are Demand Generation and Lead Lifecycle problems, not technical problems. These problems follow a formula, and are easily identified:

A to B by when

For example:

I need to promote our new widget to every medical practice with more than 30 employees  in the state of Florida before April 30^th.

Now that you have identified the business problem, you to perform some diagnostics to determine the reasons why you can’t promote your widget to your target audience. The root cause (diagnosis) will help determine how you will solve that problem (treatment). Let’s look at some potential examples of root problems.

1.     You don’t’ have any medical practices in your database. Those cloud connectors may polish up the data in your MAP only to find out that you have nicely standardized and appended a database not in your target market. Your still have not solved your business problem.

2.     You don’t have geographic information on your contacts. Many organizations try to append this data via cloud connectors or plugins that extract address information from either company names or IP addresses. These can produce spotty results if the company headquarters is in another state or in another country. Fi you are marketing to a medical practice in Pensacola, but the headquarters is in Poughkeepsie, your automated programs  may inadvertently skip right over that prime prospect!

3.     Your title segmentation is incomplete and inconsistent. That cloud connector or plugin is looking for some title to rationalize to “Director” or “VP” and Dr. Sarah Jones – the actual director of your target medical practice – has a title of “Physician.” Your database now thinks nobody is in charge of your prime target medical practice.

Change the conversation.

Don’t misunderstand, I believe cloud connectors and plugins are a good thing.  They have good application when applied to the right problem. They are, however, not a magic bullet for every business problem and, in fact, can actually make your root problem worse!

Notes:

You need to first understand your business problem.

You need a proper diagnosis to determine the solution.

Not every problem can be solved with a standard solutions, cloud-based or otherwise.

Next week, we will continue the discussion about cloud connectors and plugins. Now that we know we need to really understand our business problem before prescribing a technical solution, we will investigate how to determine if a cloud connector is a viable solution in next week’s edition: Head in the Clouds? Three ways to evaluate cloud connectors.