Call ResponsePoint Today!
800-990-0725

Defining Standard E-mail Open, Click-Thru and Unsubscribe Metrics

February 7, 2012 by

The most common question I get from clients when discussing e-mail marketing is “What are the standard open and click rates they need to get to be successful?” My standard answer is of course 100%. I quickly explain this number only applies if you’ve successfully built a campaign that clearly identifies prospects that have the need, budget and are ready to buy when the e-mail hits their inbox. In this case, anything less than 100% response rate should be viewed as failure.

For most organizations, having such a clearly defined target audience is not practical. As a result, determining a satisfactory response rate requires a better understanding of your program objectives, what you are attempting to measure and the quality of your list. All three elements will play an important role in determining your target e-mail response rate and measurement criteria.

For example, if your program objectives are to increase awareness of your company, product or solution, then measuring the combination of open rates will give you a good indication of the quality of your program and if your messages are being received. You may also want to include a metric focused on audience growth such as the number of e-mails sent as compared to the bounce rate.

If on the other hand your objective is lead generation or even list segmentation, click-thru rates are going to be much more important. In these types of programs, the number of e-mails sent could actually decrease as you learn more about your target audience and emails become more focused on the specific needs of the individual recipient. In these instances, maintaining your delivery rates will require more, unique e-mails sent in smaller batches. Your goal should be to appeal to the individual and, as a result, achieve a higher click-thru rate.

Regardless of your objective, two numbers need to be consistently measured and acted upon to determine the success of your email program. The first is your unsubscribe rate, or the number of people who request to be removed from your email communications. Clearly, you want this number to be a low as possible from email to email. The second is your click-thru rate, or the number of people that click on a link within your email. This number represents active interest in your email message. Each click should results some activity to further profile or qualify the individual’s buying state to determine if there is an immediate sales opportunity.

Filed under Email Marketing, General Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Online Marketing

Launching and Testing Your B2B Social Marketing Strategy

February 3, 2012 by

There are more than a few theories on how to build and manage your social marketing programs. What’s right for you requires understanding your business objectives and the level of influence you have with customers, prospects, media and other stakeholders within your industry. The one constant is that launching your own social media program is similar to a message-in-a-bottle. You can choose the type of bottle, where you’ll place it and even who has access, but the current will take it where it wants to go.

To test the waters, working with and through existing social channels offers a less risky alternative to launching your own program. This starts by identifying groups that are focused on your target markets and becoming a source of content and conversation. Linked In and Yahoo Groups, for example, offer a good way to build an audience and your credibility, while maintaining your ability to back away if necessary.

This measured approached to social networking allows you to get your feet wet and discover the level of investment your willing to make. What few people and companies realize when first getting started is the amount of time and energy that goes into managing a social marketing strategy. To succeed, you need to be diligent and consistent in your participation. This includes responding to inquiries when they arise, leading conversations in the direction they want to go and knowing when to just sit back and say nothing. To extend my earlier analogy, you need to become the current to move the conversation in the direction you want it to go.

Once you have successfully built your credibility and gained a firm understanding of the commitment, how you choose to build your own social network and platform will once again depend on your unique business requirements. The advantage you’ll have now, is the ability to significantly reduce your risk of failure and the potential social media backlash that could result from a false start.

Filed under General Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Media Relations, Online Marketing

There is No Substitute for Experience

January 31, 2012 by

There really is no substitute for experience. This fact became even more apparent to me this weekend as I fulfilled a lifelong dream of flying a helicopter. Ever since watching that rainbow colored chopper swoop and dive around the islands on Magnum PI, I’ve wanted to experience what this was like. To prepare, I’ve read books and tried simulators, but nothing compared to the real thing as I had my first and last lesson in flying this weekend. I lived, but I wouldn’t say the results were that good since I can clearly remember my instructor saying more than once “If you do that, you’re going to die.”

This same lesson, although with slightly less dangerous consequences applies to your marketing planning. Unless you’re able to apply real world knowledge to the solution, there’s inherently more risk that your programs will fail to achieve your desired lead generation goals. Similarly, without the pre-requisite experience, the odds are significantly higher that you’ll fail to recognize opportunities that could deliver better results than the programs would that you initially planned.

How you gain that experience is up to you. For most organizations, there’s a mixture of people with a broad background of experience that can work together to formulate the planning process. For others, involving agencies and trusted advisors in the process can fill potential holes in your staff and bring insight into new areas of opportunity.

At ResponsePoint, we offer clients our experience on a project by project basis, or as an extension of your total planning process. Expertise gained from a broad spectrum of programs and technologies enables us to guide you through the entire planning process. A process that produces a well thought-out and actionable plan for managing your marketing programs. A plan that includes solid justifications for why you chose each program, how success will be measured, as well as the anticipated value to your business.

Filed under General Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Musings from the team

Measuring Customer Relevance as Part of Your Web Sites SEO

January 26, 2012 by

Last week, Google implemented a change to their search algorithm to measure the page layout of your site as a factor related to page rank. Their reasoning for the change is that if a user needs to scroll down to see the primary content within your page; the less satisfied they’ll be with your content. According to the official Google webmaster blog, the change is specifically meant to target sites with heavy advertising content located at the top of the page and will affects less than 1% of searches globally.

Understanding the implications this change will have on your own site is difficult to measure. Your best course of action to improve your Google Page Rank is to focus on the user experience as much as possible. This is true, because Google strives to weed out sites that are optimized for search and not people. The last three major updates to their algorithm have been for this purpose and future updates promise to continue to do so.

For guidance on what to do, Google suggests focusing on maximizing page load speed, improving content relevance and simplifying navigation. These are easily measured and related directly to customer satisfaction. All three have the same purpose, to get people to the content they want, and these are the principles upon which Google is founded.

You can measure your success in providing value to visitors by evaluating your analytics, specifically your site’s bounce rate. Your Bounce Rate measures the number of people who visit your site and leave almost immediately. The lower your Bounce Rate the better. Google interprets a low Bounce Rate as a clear indication that their search results match what you’re promoting and will continue to drive traffic in your direction.

If you’ve spent a small fortune on SEO services and are getting lots of traffic, but also have a very high bounce rate, don’t expect those results to last. Google will see this and adjust your page relevance rank within their algorithm accordingly to compensate. Your goal as a web site owner should be to attract and keep users on your site. In this case, fewer users who stay on your site (low bounce rate) is actually more beneficial to improving your page relevance than lots of visitors who immediately leave (high bounce rate).

When you consider this in terms of Google’s latest algorithm update you can better understand how they interpret that picture at the top of your site. While it may improve the attractiveness of your site, if it’s not helping people learn about your company or find the information they are looking for, then you should consider replacing it with more meaningful details.

Filed under General Marketing, Lead Generation, Online Marketing

Using Analytics to Guide Lead Generation

January 25, 2012 by

Web site analytics provide an interesting, but often vague analysis of the activity on your website. For example, knowing that 1000 people visited your site during a specific time period and that the average number of pages they visited was three is nice. Knowing who those individuals are and which pages each of them visited would be better. Similarly, knowing your e-mail open and click rates offers another level of information, but fails to truly provide actionable lead generation knowledge.

While there isn’t a foolproof formula for identifying every visitor, experience combined with marketing automation tools, such as those utilized by ResponsePoint, can expand your level of knowledge to a degree far surpassing Google Analytics and/or e-mail click rates alone. In addition, these tools enable a broader range of program tracking that encompasses direct mail, events, trade shows, as well as website traffic and e-mail.

By leveraging a combination of tools and establishing a clear hierarchy of behaviors, ResponsePoint is able to help translate analytics into actionable lead generation activities in a way that delivers a greater return-on-investment. This is accomplished by providing call center and sales representatives with detailed information about the lead and prospect such as:

  • How much time they spent viewing a particular product or service on your site
  • The number of times the user visited these pages
  • Details about promotional offers and incentives that brought them to your attention
  • Resources such as white papers, brochures, videos, etc. that the prospect accessed and downloaded
  • This enhanced knowledge of your prospects makes it possible to shape your response mechanisms and dramatically improve your lead generation activities. The result is greater focus on higher potential leads, a lower cost of sales and an increased close rate.

Filed under Data Management, General Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Online Marketing

Using Content to Expand Your Knowledge of Prospects

January 20, 2012 by

One of the great debates for marketers over the past few years is the extent to which companies should go to protect their content. The digitalization of content, such as white papers, calculators, blog posts, images, videos and numerous other medium, has made it simple for other parties to pilfer proprietary information for their own purposes. Content creates value. Fresh, original content is always at a premium. Thus, the challenge for website managers is to protect your content, while not impeding your customers and prospects from finding and utilizing it.

At the heart of this debate is how to manage promotional offers that send users to a webpage to view a video, download a white paper or brochure. Do you require the user to register or fill out a form to gain access? Is the perceived value of the offer (i.e. white paper or brochure) enough to make a person provide information about themselves? The answers are never cut and dried, here are a few ideas that can help guide your decision.

If you’re working from an in-house list, you have a distinct advantage and many more options. Technology such as e-mail, web page and direct mail tracking solutions can help you easily identify the individual respondent without requiring them to register or login. In these instances, you may choose to eliminate the form altogether or ask fewer questions related to profiling that are less personal in nature.

If on the other hand, you are building awareness and want to identify new prospects, that registration information is critical. Requiring users to provide basic data is common, but caution should be taken so as not to ask for too much on the first visit. Create a plan for multiple touch points with your first task being to gain their permission to communicate with them in the future. Once you’ve done this, over time continue expanding your knowledge of the individual in manageable bites with different incentives.

This process can take weeks, if not longer, but it is proven to work. Along the way, you’re able to adjust your offers to meet the needs of the individual. This is critical for encouraging initial non-responders to take action based on new information or offers made at a later date. It also allows you to protect your content and increase your perceived value as a market or solution expert.

Filed under Direct Mail, Email Marketing, General Marketing, Lead Generation, Marketing Strategy, Online Marketing

New Quick Start Program Improves Lead Generation for the Complex Sale

January 18, 2012 by

We’re excited to announce today the launch of a new program to help organizations streamline the generation of leads by focusing on maximizing the potential of their existing customers and aging prospect lists. This Quick Start program for Customer and Prospect Re-engagement is designed to produce high quality leads consistently for organizations that have a complex sales process. It does this by managing cost and keeping sales people focused on closing active deals, while at the same time engaging, educating and moving prospects through the pipeline.

To learn more about this program, read the full Quick Start for Customer Re-Engagement press release or give us a call at 800-990-0725

Filed under General Marketing, Lead Generation, Marketing Strategy, Media Relations

5 Questions to Determine if a Marketing Program is Right for You

January 13, 2012 by

We spend a lot of time listening to clients in order to fully understand their objectives. Often these conversations start with some pretty interesting marketing ideas. One of our jobs as program managers is to evaluate each activity to determine its potential for success in terms of meeting your marketing objectives.

When you take the time to evaluate marketing programs in this way, what you’ll find is that a great idea or opportunity doesn’t always equate to a great marketing program. This is particularly true of great offers that come from 3rd party sources.

The best, most common illustration of this is the last minute availability of advertising space at a substantial discount. The usual story is that another advertiser didn’t have their materials ready. Because the editor doesn’t want a hole in their publication, the sales rep can offer you the space at a significant discount – if you act quickly. On the surface, this can certainly seem like a tremendous opportunity, but if advertising IN THIS PUBLICATION isn’t already on your marketing plan, why would making a snap decision to do it now seem practical.

To determine if a marketing idea or opportunity is right for you, consider the following questions:

  1. Will this opportunity translate into more sales opportunities?
  2. Does this opportunity focus on reaching my pre-defined target audience?
  3. Do I have a follow-up plan for maximizing the potential of this opportunity?
  4. What will I have to give up in order to take advantage of this opportunity?
  5. What will I lose if I do nothing?

Evaluating your marketing opportunities in this way can help you avoid making rush decisions and wasting money on programs that produce little or no results.

Filed under Advertising, General Marketing, Lead Generation, Marketing Budgeting, Marketing Strategy

Improve Your Lead Generation Activities by Focusing on the Investment, Not the Spend

January 10, 2012 by

When I first starting in marketing I sat next to a media relations specialist who spent the first part of her day flipping through magazines and clipping product profiles from the back of magazines. She would then line them up on her desk and measure them with a ruler before slipping each scrap of paper into a plastic sleeve within a 3-ring binder. When I asked what she was doing, I got my first lesson in measuring the value of column inches as it relates to PR. Those clippings were a goldmine in value, not because they made a huge splash, but because they were consistently there and cost very little to obtain.

Two decades later, that lesson is one that many organizations could benefit from as they fine tune their marketing strategies for 2012 and beyond. In today’s ROI driven marketing environments, companies often mistakenly focus on maximizing their spend, rather than their total investment in time and money. This can happen when marketing departments try to demonstrate their worth by making the big splash or spreading their limited budgets across as many activities as possible throughout the year.

Instead, businesses need to focus on what will help them achieve their goals regardless of the budget impact. What you’ll find is that many of your objectives can be reached through greater attention to detail and an investment in time, rather than money. This often results in fewer, better managed programs that generate more, higher quality leads.

What I learned about PR that day so long ago was that those clippings were a goldmine in value, not because they made a huge splash, but because they were consistently there and cost very little to obtain. By understanding that the press needed good, quality content to make their jobs easier, we could get free coverage by providing regular, meaningful blurbs to the media directly or through the submission of press releases. A win-win for everyone. Sometimes this was simply a brief, 1-inch announcement of a new product release, but more often than you would believe, it consisted of a longer listing that contained positioning and benefit statements more appropriate for a marketing brochure.

This same process can have an even more profound impact in our media saturated world. Print is still very much alive and a great source of information and validation when it comes to new announcements. What has changed is its utilization as a resource for web content and as a gauge of value for search engine optimization and content quality. That 1-inch printed product blurb also appears on the publications website, which in turn, may link back to your site. This not only promotes your company, but also drives traffic back to your site.

Even better is that with the improvement in technology, the distribution of news and press releases has become much easier and getting quality announcements to the right people has become much more efficient and cost effective.

For companies that can produce regular news announcements, such as manufacturing companies with lots of products, putting this process to work can be incredibly useful. Not only will you improve your brand recognition, but effectively increase your product visibility on the web, as well as improve sales.

Filed under General Marketing, Lead Generation, Marketing Budgeting, Marketing Strategy, Media Relations

Why is Relationship Marketing Vital to B2B Lead Generation Success?

January 5, 2012 by

We spend a lot of time with clients discussing the importance of building and preserving relationships with prospects as an avenue for generating more, better quality leads. This Relationship Marketing approach is the bedrock for what we do, and what separates us from other agencies.

In simple terms, Relationship Marketing is built upon the premise that people will respond better to someone they know, like and trust. This is the foundation for most marketing activities, but when applied to process of Business-to-Business (B2B) lead generation, relationship marketing becomes exponentially more important as the value of the sale increases and the number of potential, viable customers shrinks.

Unlike consumer markets that can find new customers around every virtual corner, most B2B markets are finite. For niche and very expensive solutions, these numbers can be particularly small. This means that even the loss of a single opportunity can have a significant impact on your bottom line.

Consequently, Relationship Marketing focuses on the needs of each potential prospect and building a bond that sets the stage for all future interaction with that individual. At ResponsePoint, we treat every potential opportunity as a future customer, even those that may not be ready to purchase for months or years.

The advantage of the Relationship Marketing approach to lead generation is that it enables you to maximize your limited sales opportunities by:

  • Avoiding the erosion of your potential market through misaligned or inappropriately managed marketing programs that turn-away potential buyers.
  • Identifying opportunities earlier in the sales process.
  • Allowing you to influence the buying criteria.
  • Simplifying your ability to identify influencers and decision makers.

Understanding your available universe is the first step to implementing a successful Relationship Marketing approach to marketing. From there, you can build a strategy that aligns your communications and lead generation activities based on the size of your target market. Large or small, improving your relationship with each and every prospect will undoubtedly have a positive effect on your ability to generate more, high quality leads now and in the future.

Filed under General Marketing, Lead Generation, Marketing Strategy

← View Our Blog Archive