I recently made a recommendation to our entire demand gen team: Start "The Lab".
Idea in Brief:
- As demand gen marketers, we like to experiment.
- We are constantly testing (in particular A/B testing) new marketing approaches, that can be measured concretely and immediately.
- However, test results and learning are often shared on an ad hoc basis, or only with select audiences in the company. Results are not archived or saved for future reference.
- Demand gen teams should start a "Lab". The lab would be a collection of every test run by the Demand Gen, as a source of learning and knowledge for the entire business.
Idea in Practice
- Start an online collaboration space (a folder in Box, or any other collaboration solution you use)
- Every time you conclude a test have the person who owned the test
- Write up a test summary
- Include
- Overview / description of what you were testing (state your hypothesis)
- Test results (outcomes)
- Insights and Conclusions (key learning)
- The above should be done in a 1-page (or 1-slide) format, and link to more detailed documentation if necessary)
- Some common demand gen tests
- New technologies / ad unit types (e.g. rich media vs. flat ads)
- Landing pages
- Forms
- Email (sender, subject, in-message call-to-action, creative/design, etc)
The "Lab" will quickly become a reference and source of learning for your entire company. Demand gen tends to be on the cutting-edge of marketing....let's share our experiments and all the great learning we generate.