Email Marketing in a Web 2.0 World - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #135
Thursday, August 7th, 2008I know, I know, “Web 2.0” sounds sooooo cliché but the so-called Web 2.0 world has really changed everything when it comes to marketing including those traditional activities like Webinar marketing, email campaigns, and direct marketing. Now, Jeff Pulver posts some wonderful advice on avoiding email marketing mistakes in Marketing 103: e-mail Marketing Mistakes to Avoid in a Web 2.0 World.
I encourage you to forgive him his “web 2.0 world” reference (we’ve all made them) and read this great post. Most of his advice is focused on formatting the email to look as if it is personalized. But he does offer a few tips that many marketers may not have considered such as:
” - Be ONLINE and AVAILABLE.
The sender of the email marketing campaign should be plan to be online and responding to messages as they are received from people asking questions from the email they just received. The more available the sender is, the higher the probability the success rate will be higher. Avoid going dark if you can avoid it.
– KNOW the DEVICE and Platform being used by the recipient to read their messages. This continues to be the BEST way to increase the chances your message will be seen in a way you intended it to be seen. The information about the default device/platform used to read e-mail can have a tremendous impact on the future effectiveness of future e-mail marketing campaigns.”
By following Jeff’s advice and investing in a great database and email automation tools, you can make your email marketing campaigns less of an intrusion and see an increase in click throughs and conversion rates. However, I recommend you take Web 2.0 a step further and offer up a number of options for communicating with your customers. Make sure you give them the choice of receiving an email, RSS feed, or Twitter updates. You can increase the frequency of your outreach to customers and reduce the investment you sink into building an email marketing campaign by leveraging these social media tools to build a network of followers. At BreakingPoint, we’ve built a rapidly growing following on Twitter that is paying off in terms of web visitors, leads, and loyal followers who help us spread word of mouth about our products. Curious about how we did it? Follow our corporate feed at www.twitter.com/breakingpoint. Or, if you want to get updates on The B2B Lead stories follow the bloggers at www.twitter.com/poneal, www.twitter.com/lawallace and www.twitter.com/ahawthorne.
“Fuel” for Lead Generation - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #134
Wednesday, August 6th, 2008The talk of high gas prices today – it’s on everyone’s mind and we can’t get away from it.
Cost of lead generation – it’s on every smart marketer’s mind and we can’t get away from it.
There seems to be an interesting parallel between the two. With higher gas prices, also come new alternative ways to travel, for example, carpooling, hybrids and fuel efficient cars. If you have high quality fuel to put into your marketing programs, it’s even more important to determine which vehicle(s) will most effectively accelerate sales conversions.
Test your options and see how your prospects respond and engage. Build your programs based on results.
- Do they prefer to attend live webinars or watch recorded webcasts to get information?
- Or do they prefer white papers because they can read it on their own time?
- Or do they prefer white papers because they can read it on their own time?
- Do they participate in surveys? Or take free online demos?
- Do they subscribe to a specific set of industry newsletters?
- Do industry analysts play a role in their buying decisions?
- Do they go to the blogosphere for their ‘real’ information?
- Are they in communities you possibly haven’t discovered?
The goal of testing here is to better understand your prospects and the way they consume information for making buying decisions. Once you’ve determined the most effective vehicles, consider your marketing mix.
Marketing Mix
- Make sure you always have a goal in mind. How are you gauging success?
- Include different vehicles in your marketing mix to ensure your prospective buyers are receiving your message in the method they best respond to.
- Be sure not to exclude suspects by being exclusive with your offers. You don’t want to miss opportunities.
- Consider adding new media outlets to the mix and you may discover new ways to reach your target audience.
The most important message here is that you use your fuel as effectively as possible and find the vehicle that best reaches your buyers and accelerates your lead generation conversions.
Is Dirty Data Sabotaging your Marketing Results? - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #133
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008Dirty data—whether purchased, gathered via download offers or aged and stored in your internal database—costs companies billions every year in wasted resources and lost productivity.
Today’s mobile workforce is changing jobs faster than ever before. According to Gartner, 30 million of the 138 million workers in the US will switch jobs in the next 12 months. Now add that to the number of businesses that move or get acquired every month. It’s easy to see how they dirty data piles up and piles up fast.
Feeding dirty contact data into a marketing automation or CRM system has a multiplier effect that can derail success by:
- Delivering the wrong message to the wrong person
- Annoying customers and prospects with redundant messages
- Losing credibility due to botched attempts at personalized communications
- Failing to leverage multi-modal marketing capabilities
- Misinterpreting campaign success metrics
- Creating more Sales inefficiencies
Even with so much at stake, tackling data cleanup issues is a daunting proposition. Most Marketers are overwhelmed by a customer or prospect database with hundreds of thousands of duplicate entries, old data, inaccurate contact details and countless records in myriad states of completeness. This existing data has likely been gathered by many different individuals over multiple years. It is often too difficult to know where to begin.
Before you undertake any data cleaning, segmentation, or augmentation initiative, be sure to map out your plan. Here’s an outline to get you started.
Targeting the Right Companies–
Use what you already have access to first – your CRM data and your web site visitor logs
- CRM data
- Profile your top performing market segments – where are you winning?
- Identify your best target markets – what kinds of deals close the fastest?
- Determine key qualifying company characteristics and buyer roles.
- Website visitor logs/Unknown visitor logs
- Look for visitor patterns – ex. are there lots of healthcare companies visiting you that you haven’t directly targeted?
- Are companies visiting already currently in your database, if so, are you recording these page visits?
- Your online marketing and PPC advertising is driving lookers, just because they don’t announce themselves doesn’t mean they aren’t potential leads.
This analysis will help you determine where to find your target market “sweet spot”.
Once you’ve built a profile of common denominators or qualifying criteria for your target market “sweet spot,” now you’re ready to identify your decision making unit. The decision making consists of everyone involved in the buying decision of your product or service.
Start with a decision making unit profile to identify the types of buyers involved in the buying process and the roles of these buyers both in the buying cycle and their role within the organization. It is vital to understand the responsibilities for each of your buyers. With this information, you will be able to refine your data augmentation program and standardize data collection requirements for more targeted marketing programs.
Now that you have your buying unit profiled, pull a list of pre-existing contacts that correspond to your Target Accounts so you can begin the process of de-duping, identifying missing fields such as addresses or contact details, and identifying gaps such as key buyers, roles and other relevant details.
After your de-duping process, you now know what you have and what you need to fill in. When filling in the gaps, remember to look for role-based contact resources, like ReachForce. Shameless promotion I know…but remember the title-based lists we’re all used to using are still delivering a less than 3% response rate. Isn’t it worth the risk of trying something new?
A few extra data hygiene tips from our Marketing Ops Guru, Lauren, here at ReachForce –
- Mark all records that are included in your current target market, you don’t necessarily want to delete the data you aren’t using but you want to be able to pull your new target market data easily. You’ll be thankful you did this, I promise.
- Add a ‘born on’ date field to the record and once you’ve refreshed it, add the date, everyone touching the record will be happy you did this.
- As you are filling in gaps and building out contact data for new roles, consider other segmenting options. While you’re updating you should go ahead and do this too. This will enable you to laser target your message at these prospects.
10 Email Pitfalls and 10 Email Power Words - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #132
Monday, August 4th, 2008I saw something recently that said it was ok to use the word free in an email subject line? So I went looking for other information to support that. We all know that spam filters love the word free. I’m guessing we can thank the B2C marketers for that…
I ran across a MarketingProfs newsletter article, , titled Email Marketing - Top 10 Language Pitfalls and Top 10 Power Words. Although some of these are obvious, I thought it was worth passing on as it can’t hurt to be reminded of what we should and should not say when writing our email copy.
Here’s the Top Ten Language Pitfalls in Email Marketing Messages:
10. Typos and misspellings due to poor editing
Wow. With spell check, this really happens? Surely every email automation vendor out there offers spell check, right? Slow down and take the time to make sure your spelling and grammar are correct. You don’t want to say from when you mean form.
9. Subject lines in ALL CAPS
All caps in email is equivalent to shouting. You would never shout at your customers or prospects in person, would you?
8. Use of punctuation marks and numbers within the subject line
When I find myself needing punctuation in a subject line, I instantly think it’s too long and I’m trying to say too much. I think Eloqua says best practice is 6 words or less in a subject line.
7. ALL CAPS within the message body
Remember, no need to shout. Use other creative means such as color, different font, or buttons/banners/backgrounds for emphasis if there is an explanation, offer, or condition not to be missed.
I agree again on the shouting. I tend to bold important phrases or link them to our call to action.
6. Excessive or unnecessary Power Word repetition; especially of power word #1
See below.
Hint – power word #1 is FREE
5. Copy written in passive rather than active voice
We need to get to the point quickly in email. Front-load sentences and paragraphs with action verbs and eye-catching benefits.
Don’t forget people also read emails in a preview pane. Make sure you are getting their attention immediately. I try to include a call-to-action link in the first 2 lines too.
4. False or inflated sense of urgency
The very nature of email implies expediency, immediacy. Your audience is already in a mindset to quickly access and process email messages. Nudge, don’t shove. In our B2B communications, what is really all that urgent anyway?
3. Vague calls-to-action
“Click here” or “visit our Web site” are too general; they don’t reinforce the subject of your message or your offer. Nor do they instill confidence in where a responder will land. Be specific, such as “download your free white paper” or “see the movie preview” instead.
This is also why I use key messages as links. It stands out and reinforces my offer.
2. Exaggerated Modifiers
Like “Amazing,” “Revolutionary,” “Great,” “All New,” (when just “new” would suffice) and even “Special” and “Important,” especially when used in the subject line, can land your email in the junk folder. Hype is a hallmark of spam and is unnecessary when your messages are targeted and relevant.
Fluff. That’s what these words are. Everyone looks past them so I think you’re wasting your time and valuable real estate if you’re opening with these words.
And the number-one pitfall:
1. Including the word “spam” in your message (such as “this is not spam”)
The very existence of written justification that your email is ethical calls its legitimacy into question. I can’t think of a more self-defeating proposition than stating your message is NOT what you fear it will be.
Really? Surely this is a B2C thing, right?
Top Ten Power Words
Here are the top ten power words for your email advertising and communications:
10. New - Appeals to our basic human curiosity to seek novelty.
9. Save - We all love a bargain.
8. Safety - Connotes reliability; appeals to basic human needs.
7. Proven - Justifies your claim, removes fear of the unknown.
6. Love - An all-time favorite.
5. Guarantee - If you have one, state it. It iron-clads your offer.
4. Immediate (Now, or Instant) - Instant gratification is the expectation online. If it can’t be found, completed, or received almost immediately, you’re offer is in the wrong channel.
3. Results - Provides rationalization for instant conversion.
2. You - Remember WIIFM? Your audience wants to hear about what’s in it for them, not you. Articulate your benefits in personal, conversational terms.
And the number one Power Word:
1. Free - Surprised? Probably not. Because this is the time-honored, most potent motivator in direct response, be particularly vigilant of overuse. Just a dash’ll do. Strive to optimize placement, and test if necessary. So Free is back in. And not just back in but listed as the #1 Power Word.
Are you using it? Have any metrics to prove it’s ok and working?
***These great tips were contributed by Karen Talavera, president and founder, of Synchronicity Marketing
ReachForce Book Club - The New Rules of Marketing and PR
Thursday, July 31st, 2008We started the ReachForce Book Club as a way to continue our relationship with our current customers. In today’s online world there are many more options for B2B Marketers to stay connected to their customers like through social networks and online communities. At ReachForce, we decided to mix a little old school with some new school and start a book club with a twist. Instead of meeting at a local coffee shop to discuss the book, we will be discussing it here on The B2B Lead. If you are a ReachForce customer, you should expect to receive your book soon, if not already. If you are not a customer, click here to buy it online.
Our second book is The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott. It promises to teach us “how to use news releases, blogs, podcasting, viral marketing & online media to reach buyers directly.” Each week, Leigh Anne and I will share our perspectives to get the conversation started but will rely on you to join in to share your thoughts, opinions and ideas. We will begin the conversation next week in order to give everyone a little time to get started. Next week we’ll be reading and chatting about chapters 1, 2 & 3.
Happy reading!
Opting Out of Opt-In - B2B marketing and Sales Tip #131
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008Something I have been asked about lately is opt-in emails. There seems to be a battle between what is the best marketing practice. I will be first to admit that opt-in is always best, but for a new or growing company, building an opt-in list can be a difficult and lengthy process.
First things first, here is Wikipedia’s definition of Opt-in email:
Opt in e-mail is a term used when someone is given the option to receive “bulk” e-mail, that is, e-mail that is sent to many people at the same time. Typically, this is some sort of mailing list, newsletter, or advertising. Obtaining permission before sending e-mail is critical because without it, the e-mail is Unsolicited Bulk Email, better known as spam.
There are several common forms of opt-in e-mail:
Unconfirmed opt-in
A new subscriber first gives his/her address to the list software (for instance, on a Web page), but no steps are taken to make sure that this address actually belongs to the person. This can cause e-mail from the mailing list to be considered spam because simple typos of the email address can cause the email to be sent to someone else. Malicious subscriptions are also possible, as are subscriptions that are due to spammers forging email addresses that are sent to the e-mail address used to subscribe to the mailing list.
Confirmed opt-in (COI)
A new subscriber asks to be subscribed to the mailing list, but unlike unconfirmed opt-in, a confirmation e-mail is sent to verify it was really them. Many believe the person must not be added to the mailing list unless an explicit step is taken, such as clicking a special web link or sending back a reply e-mail. This ensures that no person can subscribe someone else out of malice or error. Mail system administrators and non-spam mailing list operators refer to this as confirmed subscription or closed-loop opt-in.
I want you to repeat after me, “I cannot buy and opt-in list.” For an email list to be truly opt-in, the subscriber needs to have signed-up to receive communication from you. If a company is selling an opt-in list, they are selling the names and emails of someone who has agreed to receive emails from affiliates. (We have all signed up for these when ordering a magazine or joining a new website) Many recipients on these “opt-in” lists still consider these affiliate messages to be SPAM.
Some marketers think that they can only email opt-in lists to avoid being a SPAMer. When actually, you just have to include a way for recipients to opt out. There are a few other rules you can read about on the Federal Trade Commission’s website, but currently there is no requirement for the opt-ins. If you are emailing internationally, be aware that each country has different laws for email marketing. Some countries in Europe have much stricter laws than in the US.
Really the best way to avoid being a SPAMer is to deliver relevant content to those you are emailing. Highly targeted and segmented campaigns with compelling content that speaks to the audience and their pain points. We have found that after we deliver new content to our prospects, they sign up for continued communication.
If you are looking to expand your opt-in list, check out Vertical Response’s Umpteen Ways to Build Your Email List.
Make Marketing Decisions by Using Surveys - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #130
Tuesday, July 29th, 2008On the B2B Lead we have discussed using surveys to score leads but surveys are also a useful tool for getting to know your prospective buyers. Do you really know your target market? Are there shifting trends you don’t know about but should? By understanding a prospect’s business environment and specific business initiatives, marketing and sales teams can further refine their approach for targeting them. Surveys can be especially useful when launching a new product or entering a new market.
As B2B marketers are increasing their spend on social media, a survey may be an opportunity to find out where your customers and prospects are going online. If all of your customers/prospects are either on Facebook or LinkedIn, don’t bother with creating a MySpace page (on a side note, it seems to be fairly unanimous that MySpace is pretty much worthless for B2B).
As marketing budgets are being tightened, costly events are being cut. It can be difficult to decide which events to keep and which to drop especially if your product has a long sales cycle so ROI cannot be measured before it is time to sign a contract again. A show may be timed poorly this year, like on Election Day (sorry, I am calling you out salesforce.com), which could cause lower attendance. Ask your prospects which events they will be attending.
Things to consider when creating surveys:
- How long?
- Shorter is always better
- Ask only what you need to know
- Try to keep it to 5 minutes or less
- To offer an incentive or not?
- If you are doing a longer survey, a incentive is a must
- If you are offering a incentive tell the participant upfront
- Could the information you are gathering be useful to the participants. If the answer is yes, have the incentive be to give them the info you gathered. Remember people love reports on industry trends.
- Types of questions
- Multiple choice are the easiest and fastest to answer
- Free response may give you more qualitative info but is more difficult to get participants to fill out
Once you have completed surveying your prospects, use this information to segment your contact database and create different targeted messages for each segment. You may also find that different segments respond to different marketing mediums. If you are entering a new industry, be sure to find out if prospects are better reached by email, direct mail, events, etc.
Some good online survey tools include SurveyMonkey and Zoomerang. These are both free for basic functionality and are easy to use. I have used both. I personally liked the reporting better through Zommerang but SurveyMonkey offered better functionality in designing the survey questions. I haven’t used it yet, but VerticalResponse also recently added surveys to their offering.
Drive Revenue from Customer Events - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #128
Friday, July 25th, 2008In a previous life when I was VP of Marketing at a high tech software company we had thousands of customers with huge upsell and cross selling opportunities. Since many of these customers were long time customers we decided a live event would not only give us the opportunity to update them on our additional products and services but would also allow us some face time for further relationship building. Our overall goal for the event was to drive more revenue from our current customer base. As we were brainstorming on the event details we wanted to be sure we had a 3-D view on everything we did. We wanted to be sure we were educating our customers, building customer loyalty and get a better understanding how we were going to continue to monetize these relationships. I’ve included a few tips below for each of these components.
Education –
- Make sure your agenda for the event is not biased towards your company and what your company has going on, but instead show interest to solving THEIR business problems and what really impacts them.
- Think about what you want them to take back from this event?
- Consider bringing in industry leaders or analysts to speak on their experiences in the marketplace
- give away an educational book or take home information they could share with others
- Add a panel of happy customers to discuss their experiences and results from working with you
Loyalty –
- Make each customer feel like they are your #1 customer
- Treat them to a nice venue, easy transportation and great food to start.
- Most importantly, make your customers feel they are part of the inner circle and by being at the event they are privy to information others aren’t. For example, show an exclusive demo of new or upcoming product releases.
Monetize –
- Hold your sales team responsible to have the right customers at the event. Ones who bring the most money, ones who have problems, ones that would benefit the most from being there.
- While at the event, set up customer face-to-face meetings with key executives. I had a spreadsheet with everyone I was meeting and knew their problems going into the conversation so I could bring the solutions. This was key.
Even though the event ended on a high note, we would have to wait another year for this type of customer interaction. Today, we wouldn’t have to wait another year to catch up with our customers. Companies like BD Metrics have already started to tackle this obstacle. BD Metrics’ You-Based™ personalization technology for leading tradeshows and associations to help make sure once people leave an event, all is not forgotten. I’m sure there are others out there also helping extend the momentum of live events. What have you seen or used? How are you staying in touch with your customers 365 days a year?
Here’s another continuing customer event idea for you to ponder… ideas
Doing More with Less - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #127
Thursday, July 24th, 2008It only makes sense that if we are able to get the right message to the right buyers in the right kinds of companies we will increase Marketing ROI and accelerate Sales cycles. So why don’t we actually do just that?
By segmenting our leads database into smaller groups with similar characteristics, we are able to create very targeted programs that enable us to highlight exact pain points and specific solutions for those points. These more focused groups also enable us to very direct with our content and offers. We no longer have to generalize or discuss issues from 10,000 ft up.
Also, consider this – wouldn’t you consider a responder to a very direct message a more qualified lead than one that bites on a general offer? Also, wouldn’t your Sales team prefer fewer, more qualified leads to buckets of names of people who you don’t know what they do on a day to day basis?
Here are a couple of different ways I segment our leads for targeted programs here at ReachForce.
We slice leads by:
- Geography
- Industry
- Prospect title
- Prospect role (i.e. end user, decision maker, key influencer, etc.)
- Special interest group (i.e. event attendees, customers of salesforce.com, etc)
- Company size
- Company revenue
- Product line offerings
- Customers’ competitors
- People who acted on a specific call to action
- People who downloaded Product/Service Info.
- People who took a demo
- People in the sales pipeline that are stuck
Can you think of any more?
ROI Up Yours - Marketing WTF?
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008Would you be offended if you got an email with ROI - Up Yours as the subject line? Personally I think I’d giggle and check it out. If nothing else to see who is sticking their neck out there like this.
Well, we tried it here at ReachForce. The email content was all about Upping your ROI, so we were being relevant. We got mixed results on our risky move. We had about ½ dozen people email us to tell us we had offended them. Not many but it made us wonder how many more people we might have offended that just chose to delete the message instead of responding back.
On the flip side we had about dozen people reply back that they “loved” the subject line.
So where exactly is the line on going to far to get some attention?
For us, my Sales team asked for the subject line to be changed, so we did it but I must say that campaign doesn’t deliver near the results it used to…
