Marketing Insights

In our quest for better email response rates we’ve looked at cleaning out inactive contacts as well as checking on your online reputation score. Today we’ll look at your follow-up times and how that can affect your response rates.

When you get a new lead into your database (through a website form, trade show booth visit, etc.) are you responding quickly? Or is it thirty days until the prospect hears from you? The longer you wait, the more likely they are to forget you – and ignore you. In this wonderful new world of social media I’ve noticed some marketers dropping some of their old-school tactics (such as autoresponders and immediate follow-ups). Don’t let those new leads go stale and become part of your non-responder baggage.

In our next post we’ll answer the question: Would your mother be proud of your marketing lists?

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When I polled my colleagues for their recommendations on productivity tools, Snagit was on everyone’s list and it’s definitely at the top of mine. I use Snagit approximately 8,456 times per day on average (okay, maybe not quite that many…) and I find it indispensible.

What is it? It’s screen captures on steroids. You can highlight areas of your screen, combine two captures into one, make notes with the text tool, and much more. The new version 9 also has excellent image tagging and library functionality which have been a lifesaver for me.

As marketers, much of our work life is visual and Snagit makes it easy for me to share those images easily with my clients and coworkers.

BONUS: I encourage you to sign up for the free 30-day trial of Snagit because they have a masterful follow-up campaign. On the confirmation page for the download (right here) they only ask for one piece of info: email address. Then over the course of 30 days you learn how to use many features of the software through their drip campaign. There are some great lessons here for marketers!

Do you have a productivity tool that you can’t live without? Tell me about it: heather dot foeh at eloqua dot com.

Now let’s talk copywriting…your email and landing page copy is intended to get the person to convert right? Get them to click through or submit a form…

Everyone is busy, so we need to make sure it’s relevant and compelling, so we don’t get ignored!

So here are your 4 copywriting dos…

1. Get to the point! We’ve all seen the never-ending email…you need to capture attention, so get to the point as quickly as possible…short paragraphs, short sentences…create the urgency with an active voice

2. Be relevant! Use real data to make key points, helps with credibility and proof, make sure your content and your offer is relevant to the audience.

3. Be real! Enough with the corporate speak, get real and have a conversation, using simple and conversational words. Use industry or technical language depending on your audience, but avoid catch phrases, clichés or buzz words

4. Get a response! Don’t make the user scroll, place the primary call-to-action links above the fold

So let’s summarize…Get to the Point, Be Relevant, Be Real, Get a Response.

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Many of us started our email campaign careers in batch and blast mode. Many are still there. But with the tools on the market available today to track your user’s behavior and the ability to sync those tools with your CRM software, the barriers are coming down. It’s time to leap over the hurdles and change your marketing strategy.

One of our Eloqua customers, Mark McCary, Senior Director of Global Marketing at Platts, uses the term “customer-generated marketing”. (You know, as opposed the marketing-generated marketing that most of us are currently doing.) Marketing Sherpa calls this concept “triggered email”. No matter what name you give it, it’s your goal.

I’m not naive. I know it’s easy for me to spout off about what you should be doing, and blithely overlook the fact that this is a massive change in your strategy. Your email blast numbers will dramatically decrease. However, conversely, your email campaign metrics should dramatically increase. As an added bonus, your campaign will have a longer lifespan since users can be triggering the campaign for as long as you have it running. 

If you’re experiencing resistance, offer to test marketing-generated versus customer-generated campaigns and let the numbers speak for themselves. Here is an excellent takeaway from the recent Marketing Sherpa Email Summit:

John Heidrich and Joe Nettum from Allstate described how their team is moving toward a triggered email strategy…They compared results from a campaign to encourage customers to sign up for an online account service system. One set of messages was sent batch-style to the entire list, and another set was sent to new customers, triggered by policy purchases:

• Open rates for the triggered email messages increased 84% over the batch messages
• Clickthrough rates for the triggered email messages increased 32%

Yeah, those numbers will speak quite eloquently for themselves.

What types of things should trigger an email campaign?

Certainly a purchase qualifies. But website surfing is your next best friend. For example, if you have three main products described on your website, you can measure the number of page visits to each area. Which product has the most page views? That should trigger an email to the prospect about that specific product. (What if they’re all three equal? Send an email with a comparison matrix to help the prospect differentiate your offerings!) You can also trigger off of whitepaper downloads, product trial downloads, abandoned purchases, and much more.

We’ll write about other triggers in a future post, but first….tell us your ideas! Have you seen anything work well? Is there something you want to try?

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Photo credit: timsnell | flickr

Today I was reading Sirius Decisions’ latest press release (”SiriusDecisions Benchmark Data Reveals: Best-in-Class Companies Positioning for Better Days“). This sentence stood out to me: “…the firm has found that marketers are changing the make-up of their programs to be closer to field activity, shifting the focus more on clients and current deals.”

It’s interesting to see the reporting data back-up what I’ve been noticing anecdotally. I spend my days guiding Eloqua’s small-medium business customers in their marketing automation projects. One refrain I’ve been hearing over and over is “lead nurturing”. It’s not about lead acquisition right now, it’s about mining the leads you already have, warming them up and getting them ready for sales.

However, it’s definitely time for a shift even further down the lead funnel. Sales cycles are now longer because of the economy and that gives marketing more of a chance to get involved in the sales process.

Alden Cushman, SiriusDecisions’ research director and benchmarking analyst says:  “From discussions with clients we’ve benchmarked, we estimate b-to-b companies are doubling their number of pipeline acceleration programs. Instead of focusing on generating new leads, these programs represent a more effective way for marketing to impact the extended sales cycle by helping to move deals that have stalled in the pipeline. Without question, the economy is driving this trend…”

What Can You Do?

• Re-engage Stalled Opportunities: Consider a short nurturing campaign to all contacts that have been sitting in the same Opportunity stage for more than 30 or 60 days (or whatever makes sense for your business). What can you offer them that will give them a nudge in the right direction? Customer testimonial videos are an excellent choice, or perhaps a “Top 10 things to consider when purchasing a…” checklist.
   
• Nurture the Account: For large deals that involve multiple contacts at one account, think about building a customized landing page for them. You can offer links to the collateral they’ve already seen and maybe some they haven’t yet (add green checkmarks to what they’ve been sent in the past). Be sure to give prominence to the name and number of the sales person for the account. Then add in some exclusive content that is normally only available via a form on your site. This is your chance to show them how well you treat your customers by giving them VIP treatment even before they’re a customer.
   
• Share “Privileged” Information: Maybe it makes sense to show your late-stage prospects a sneak peek of your upcoming product features or new service offerings?
   
• Food for Thought: Do you have a lot of ’stuck’ prospects clustered in a geographic area? Host a breakfast and invite those prospects along with two or three of your current happy customers and let them mingle.

I’d love to hear your ideas! Are you moving down the funnel and focusing less on new leads and more on maturing the leads you already have?

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Photo credit: Slowburn

I was recently working with a client who was convinced that they had an email communication frequency problem. As we looked at the data to validate the hypothesis, we discovered there was actually an entirely different and potentially greater problem – over 40% of the database had not received a single email communication at all. Wow – not even a thank you for your interest email had been sent.

There are two critical points in your relationship with a buyer where you have their greatest attention:

(1) when they learn you might be able to provide something of value to them; and,
(2) when they actually do business with you.

 As marketers – we are typically great at welcoming our customers into the family after they sign the contract or give us a credit card number. But, why do we wait so long to “welcome” someone to our organization? Why not welcome them at the point they explicitly express interest in our organization?

When to welcome. You want to welcome someone because they raised their hand for more information. Think information desk visitor versus door-to-door vacuum sales. Also, consider where your buyer is coming from and why so that you can tailor your welcome appropriately. In a transactional purchase – it may very well be the first purchase. In a more considered purchase, it may be the first time they download some information from your resource center.

 “Thank you for your interest in {what they expressed interest in, or came from, etc.}.
We would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to the {insert brand name here} family.”

Be human. Nobody wants to be welcomed to a distribution list and reduced to a mere email address. Use language that really highlights specific value to your buyer when welcoming a new email subscriber. And, set the tone and let them know what type of communications they can expect. Chad White of Email Insider Blog gives some great examples from retailers that “get it” and those that don’t.

“Welcome to our VIP group! As a member of this group,
you will get first dibs on special offers and savings with us.”

Build loyalty. Delivering value is the best way to build loyalty with your customer. If you are going to ask them to provide more information about themselves, be sure to use that information to personalize and tailor the next communication in a way that adds value to them. If you demonstrate that you are leveraging the datapoints to create value – they are more likely to provide additional details in the future. And, please do not ask for the same datapoints over and over again.

“Thank you for taking the time to tell us more about yourself.
We thought you might find {insert unique offer here} of value.”

Go beyond a single touch. A multi-touch Welcome Campaign is a great opportunity to watch and determine what their level of interest really is. If they engage with your initial welcome continue to the dialogue based on their interests and then score them at the end to determine if they are close to purchase or not. If they are – ensure the right sales resources are alerted. If they are not – nurture them until they are ready. A simple program may look like: 

Step 1: Look to see if inquiry is new to the database.
Step 2: Send initial welcome email from Company X . Provide special offer by answering one or two profile questions.
Step 3/4a: If person engages, serve offer relevant to question answers. Send final email with links to additional resources person may be interested in.
Step 3/4b: If person doesn’t engage, acknowledge intent is to help and not annoy, so please let us know if you would no longer like to receive these communications.

Your buyer wants information. You have their attention. This is a great opportunity to listen to your buyer, route them to the right resources, and consistently introduce new audiences to your unique value proposition. If you do not have an automated Welcome Campaign for your new prospects – do not wait any longer to get one in place. If you have one in place, please re-evaluate from your customer’s point of view to identify opportunities for improvement.

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All of you overachievers out there know who you are. One minute you have the bright idea to organize your books by genre and within thirty minutes you’ve decided that you need two new bookshelves, you’d like to paint them red before you use them, you’re going to move your bed to the other wall to accommodate the new red bookshelves, and that means you need to go through the four boxes of stuff that have been lurking under your bed since you moved in five years ago. This is called ‘biting off more than you can chew’ and if it could be an Olympic sport, I’d receive a gold medal.

Many of my Eloqua customers fall into this trap. They decide it’s time to create a lead nurturing campaign for the first time. My counsel is this: start small, take baby steps. But the grand idea of a lead nurturing campaign has my overachiever friends in its grip. Look at all the possibilities! I can have incredibly targeted messaging for each industry AND buying stage! I’m the master of personalized content!

Whoa there, my friend. When you start to break that down, it gets messy. If you have five target industries and 5 buying stages, that’s 25 emails. And you’ll need something compelling in each email — do you have that many assets and offers? If not, you’re going to need to hire a writer or give up your evenings and weekends because I know you don’t have free time during the day to devote to writing. And here’s the sad thing that happens…we overachievers get overwhelmed and give up.

So let’s go back to my advice: START SMALL. If you don’t have a lead nurturing campaign at all right now, a short 3-email drip campaign is 3 times better than what you have right now. And I’m pretty sure that you already have 3 assets or engaging pieces of content you can offer, so that eliminates the sleepless nights. Schedule an hour block of time on Friday to get the three emails in a consistent format so they ‘belong’ together in the drip campaign. Then schedule an hour next Tuesday to build the automated program in your marketing automation software and run your tests (note: click on every link – you’ll be glad you did). On Wednesday morning, turn on the program with its handy automated feeders and you are a rock star when you walk into your weekly marketing team meeting.

What’s next? Now you can breathe deeply because you have something running, which is much better than the nothing you had last week. And now you can focus on your segmented messages by industry and buying stage in small steps. Create one of the 5 paths this month, create the next one next month, etc. Do you see the pattern here? Baby steps = success. Trust me, you can do it.

(And yes, I recently organized my books by genre and had to purchase a new bookshelf from IKEA. But I refrained from painting it red and moving the bed. See…I’m learning!)

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