StrikeIron Blog

Reaching Beyond Developers

Developers have largely been the facilitators of Web services and Data-as-a-Service (DAAS) to date. A developer knows how to take a Web services API and integrate it into a Web site or application. All it takes is a couple of lines of code in just about any programming language.

There are millions of developers in the world. However, there are tens of millions of "expert business users" (could perhaps write a macro in Excel if necessary), and an even bigger number of garden variety "business users", perhaps numbering in the hundreds of millions.

So the question facing the industry niche is how to expand the benefits of Web services and "data services in the cloud" to this broad category consisting of hundreds of millions who could do their job better with more access to better data? How do we get them to be able to turn on desired data services existing out on the Web themselves (not use it just because a developer put it there)?

Once this can occur, when a business user can decide that they want to "turn on" a given data service within whatever their usage scenario happens to be because it improves their ability to make decisions or perform their job, then we will have crossed the "last mile" and this will be the moment where Web services in its various forms will truly prevail.

So what's the answer? Our integration with Excel helps to reach the tens of millions and that's a great start. The integration we have done with our partners in Salesforce, Netsuite, Eloqua, Goldmine, and several other applications are also significant steps. But I think what we have been calling Web 2.0 might be the closest answer we have to gaining the nine-figure audience. If a user can integrate data services over the Web into a Mashup, a blog, a wiki, their own Facebook page, or within any application they are already using on a daily basis, whether it be CRM, an accounting application, or even within their own email, then we will be there. At that point, the real super data highways will explode in size and capacity, and the Internet will have power far beyond what we recognize today.

The dream is still a ways off, but it gets a little closer every day. As for StrikeIron, we will continue to help forge the way.

Integrate Free Census Data

As one of our "Web Services Lite" services, we have made US Census Bureau data freely available as a SOAP-based Web service. This means data from the Census Bureau can be integrated into applications (including CRM, marketing automation, and ERP applications), Websites, mobile devices, examples, demos, as part of tutorials, or anything else that is capable of a consuming a SOAP-based Web service.

The lite version of the Census Bureau Web service provides a wide array of data points from the national census summarized by zip code, including age, marriage, race, household sizes, and several other demographics.

The WSDL is located here:  http://wslite.strikeiron.com/censusinfolite01/CensusInfoLite.asmx?WSDL

It does not require any authentication information to be provided.

You can try it by downloading our free Web Services Analyzer, a universal client for consuming SOAP-based Web services: http://www.strikeiron.com/tools/tools_analyzer_windows.aspx

StrikeIron and IBM

I am speaking this week (Tuesday) at IBM's Information On Demand Conference on "Data Services In The Cloud": http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/conf/

IBM has included several "StrikeIron Data Widgets" into their Mashup Center product. Here is a YouTube video demonstrating use of one of these widgets: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL08_3HKhxQ

And a blog discussing the above video: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/etech?entry=ibm_mashup_center_using_strikeiron
And another blog entry on StrikeIron Widgets on "Greenhouse", IBM's Lotus community collaboration Website: http://www.mix-and-mash.com/mashup/mashupblog.nsf/dx/08112008033410PMNCAQXW.htm 

Also, here is a great, cool 4 minute video on "Introduction to Mashups" that IBM has created to illustrate positioning of IBM's Mashup Center product and Mashups in general: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kDnbhKb2ow

Not All Leads Are Created Equal

It certainly makes obvious sense that some leads generated by a Website are better than others, and certain behavioral clues and data points (such as which pages on a site were visited) can indicate a much greater likelihood of a prospect's propensity to buy.

For example, a prospect who searches on Google for your company name is likely of more interest than someone who found the site with a generic term. And obviously, someone who visits twenty pages (including product information and pricing) on multiple visits is of more interest than someone who came once, registered for the newsletter, and just visited the Management Team page.

However, some organizations treat a lead simply as a lead, which of course is non-optimal, especially in terms of utilizing the precious time of a sales force.

Lead Scoring is the practice of applying weights to leads as they come in based on certain criteria, and then depending on the score, having a different set of sales and marketing activities associated with the lead. Since the criteria is largely based on a combination of data and behavior, integrating StrikeIron data sources over the Web at the point of lead collection can be invaluable, especially combined with site visit behavioral tools.

For example, someone who visits the site and registers and the email address and phone number is verifiable is a lead worth sending to the sales team, especially if company size, location, and business type fit predetermined parameters.

Here is a simple example lead scoring algorithm:

- Lead is from a US company (10 pts)
- Verified physical address (5 pts)
- Verified email address (5 pts)
- Verified phone number (5 pts)
- Did a search for our company name to find us on a search engine rather than a generic search term (10 pts)
- Visited how many pages on our site:
    2-10 (5 pts)
    11-20 (10 pts)
    21-50 (15 pts)
    51+  (20 pts)
- Multiple people from that domain registered (10 pts)
- C-level title (10 pts)
- Came in on the Web form (10 pts)
- Completed a product trial (10 pts)
- Revenue
    $2million-$10 million (2 pts)
    $10million-$50 million (4 pts)
    $50-$100 million (6 pts)
    $100million-$1 billion (8 pts)
    $1billion+ (10 pts)
- SIC code matches target market (10 pts)
- Responded to campaign x (10 pts)
- Responded to campaign y (5 pts)
etc.

Of course, lead scoring algorithms will be different for every company depending on their customer profiles, product offerings, and market approach. This is just one example.

Leads over certain scores are then prioritized in terms of time spent by the sales organization, and leads that fall below a certain threshold (say 25 points as an example) are maintained by the marketing organization in a "lead nurturing" program of multiple touches over time. These algorithms of course should be adjusted and optimized over time based on feedback from the sales organization.

In addition to optimizing sales team time, lead scoring can also help determine more accurately the success of various marketing campaigns. Qualified and "high scoring" leads can be measured versus just the total number of leads generated when considering the effectiveness of a campaign and campaign ROI.

Some Web services from StrikeIron that can help optimize an organization's lead scoring algorithms include:

Email Address Verification
US Address Verification
Reverse Telephone Number Verification
Global Address Verification
D&B Business Prospect with Corporate Linkage
D&B Worldbase Marketing Plus
Gale Group Business Intelligence by Web Domain

...and several others.

These services are easily integrated into automated demand creation and lead scoring solutions, whether home grown or within professional software solutions like Eloqua provides. They can then be maintained as well in CRM applications such as Salesforce.com, NetSuite, Oracle CRM on-demand, and others.

The impact to the bottom line can be tremendous.