Internet Marketing

Over the last few weeks I have been running a few lead generation campaigns for clients looking for new customers here in NZ and Australia.

Finding a list of email addresses that is clean and fully permission kosher is always a challenge.

I have used a few and it would seem that Smilecity and the Australian version of Emailcash have come up trumps and seem to be performing well.

Contact me at chris@permission.co.nz if you would like more details on what’s been going on/

Every month or so I open up the Permission offices for customers to gather over a fresh coffee and a few sweet pastries to talk about a range of subjects generally to do with online marketing.

This time we also talked about testing .

Specifically the amount of testing people did with their own email marketing.

I posed the question of what each was doing in this area and then around the table we went looking for feedback.

It was a short discussion.

There’s not much testing going on out there.

Its more a function of “ build and blast” and then onto the next job.

Perhaps it’s a sign of under resourced NZ marketers? Or maybe it’s a general state of thinking “ this is the best I’m going to get anyway so why do any testing”

Well I’m off to do my own research as I think there’s an opportunity here for better results - so expect more testing results to be shared in this blog.

Bit of a surprise with this one

Option 1: : Subscribe : May Edition :

Unique HTML opens: 45.0%
Click-throughs: 25.0%

Option 2: Left brain lead generation

Unique HTML opens: 41.0%
Click-throughs: 11.2%

The next edition of Permission’s email newsletter “Subscribe” is out and about.

You can find a version here

I’m testing two different subject lines to see how they affect response.

Option one

: Subscribe : May Edition :

Option two

Left brain lead generation

Any ideas which will be the winner??

Please excuse this half-formed idea but it may be handy.

Subject lines are well known as a great piece of campaign content to test. Positive changes in this and the FROM email address can greatly increase email message open rates.

Choosing the right subject line, however, can be an area that is difficult to test until you unleash it on your list. But how about taking the learning from any Gooogle adwords campaign you are running on what ads pushing the most clicks and then transering this now tested content directly to the subject line?

In both areas you have minimal space to tell your tale in text and the result you want is the same: a click on.

Maybe worth a go?

Let’s talk about work that’s good to have around: prospect follow up. Here are som points to help you excel at this critical stage of the lead generation process.

When you’re starting out you lead volume could be quite small and in this case a semi-manual option may be all you need. In this process, prospects that register on your landing page receive an automatic email message that is both a thank you message and a link to the content you are offering. (Working on the theory that all prospects are in a hurry and want to get at the information asap.)

As well as the prospect receiving a message I also tend to send on a copy of what has happened to the person in charge of the Web site prospecting process, so they can see what is happening. From here on in things become quite a manual process for the sales person. They need to contact the prospect via email or phone, introduce themselves and start to kick the normal sales process off.

You can refine this a bit further for the prospect by altering your Web forms so that when they return to receive more information their details are already pre-filled out to make their second registration that bit faster. From experience the less typing prospects have to do the greater the chance they will gather more content from your site to help them make a decision.

This semi-automated way can become a bit of a bind when you are managing a mass of prospects registering on multiple Web pages day and night. And while that’s not such a bad problem to have it makes it hard to keep the sales process working well under such a load.

When this happens you need a more automated process that can handle not only the registering volume but also the sales follow up. Some of the tools that cater for this are called “auto-responders” and can be used for a whole range of tasks to take the load off following up a mass of people. They are simple to set up and Permission provides access to a few that fit a range of different options.

For instance you could set up a cycle of messages to keep in contact with your prospects for a six month period from the time they register. (Naturally they can turn the communication off at any time by following the un-subscribe link at the foot of each communication.) Using such a system there should be no reason why you should ever fail to remain in touch.

Once you have a process that effortlessly converts a good percentage of your browsers to prospects then its time to gather more to your Web site.

But before you look outside of your Web site check to make sure you are making the most of what’s inside first.
Does your home page clearly show prospects the content that is on offer?

And, if you have an email newsletter is the subscription form on the front page or is it hidden deep into your Web site where nobody can see it? Or even better is the subscription form on EVERY page?

Think about creating, or having created, image tiles (small squares of images) that catch the attention of your browsers and, once clicked, take them to your high performing registration page. Frequently we find “browser converting” content sitting idle, hidden inside a Web site never receiving the attention it deserves. Bring it out to the front and make it work for you.

Once all this is completed then our attention should now turn outward to the wider expanse of the Internet and all it can offer to bring you more prospects.There are two areas I recommend you looking into; search engine marketing and third party email newsletter advertising, both can work extremely well.

Search engine marketing is an Internet discipline on its own, so I’ll try not to get too deep into the subject here. Basically you have two options. Firstly you can have your Web site optimised so that when a search engine “spider” visits your site, you can make its path a simple one and therefore it correctly classifies your content under the keywords you want to be seen under.

Therefore when a prospect uses a term that fits your product or company in the search engine spider’s Web site your company “should” appear beneath their search term.
All this relies on your Web site being spider friendly plus some pre-thought on what terms you want to tell the
spider to use when helping searchers find your Web site.

Or secondly you can take a short cut and invest in making your Web site place highly on the right hand side of search engine results when prospects type in search terms that you want to be seen under.
The good news is that with this option you only pay when someone clicks from the search page to your site hence the term “Pay Per Click” advertising. Suffice to say that Google is the king of the search engines so a good bunch of your attention should be placed here for either option.

Imagine your prospect on your website. They like the content “bait” you are offering and are willing to “trade” it for some of their own contact details. They come with a few seconds of attention - make a mess of it here and all your previous work is wasted.

Registrations pages or landing pages have to be designed with four points in mind to make them really work well.
Firstly, they need to be set up with the sole purpose of making this lead transformation process work, nothing else. No extra navigation or superfelous navigation. Anything that may cause any distraction needs to be removed.
Secondly it helps if the content on the form tries to carry on from the conversation previously started with the advertisement that brought them to the page. So if you talk about a FREE CD Rom in the animated image file on your home page you will need the landing page to kick off some dialog about what the CD Rom includes and why it should be registered for.

Thirdly landing pages need to be short and to the point. Now is not the time to be requesting too much detail. Just capture what you need to provide them the information they are requesting and the smallest amount of extra details you need for future qualification.
And finally registration pages need fine-tuning. Rarely do you get it right first time. By tracking their conversion rate (that is the amount of times they are successfully completed compared to the times they are visited in total) you will find out what tweaks improve rather than hinder results.

Here’s some Audio that works with this post. Other tricks of the trade to make your registration pages work.

In the last post I talked about the need present content on your Web site that is so valuable it turns your anonymous Web browser into a known sales lead. This post covers some of the types of content people use for this process with some examples for you to consider.

Firstly I always suggest that my customers to produce a number of different types of content presented in alternative ways. Some prospects will like to print out and read what you provide, others just want to sit back and listen or watch what you have to say. By appealing to each different group your chances of success increase.

Here are some examples of different content types and alternative ways of presentation.

To appeal to those that want to print and ponder later a “White Paper” could be produced that talks to the common issues that face prospects when they use your type of product. This type of document is supposed to paint an impartial picture of the issues facing buyers of your type of product. You can register to learn more about writing white papers here.

For those that are more visual in how they digest information a presentation could be created in a “Web cast” form that covers the points you want mentioned in a multi-media type of format.
These styles of presentations are ideal for getting across complex concepts as they allow a multiple mix of media options. Go here to see a recent Permission Web cast as an example of this technology in action.

If your product allows it you could produce a FREE CD Rom that includes a sample product for limited use and demonstration. Prospects would register with their postal address and contact details for you to send them a sample.

Or, if you cannot send your product on a CD Rom why not ask your prospects to register to receive a live Web demonstration of the product in action. Now you can purchase, at a reasonable cost per month, tools that will let you set up these Web demonstrations at a fraction of their previous cost.

Perhaps audio could be worth presenting. You could interview a well known identity in your industry and prospects could register to hear the interview. And last but not least there is the registration to receive an email marketing newsletter.

Each day people come to your Web site unannounced. They arrive, have a look around and then move on. To you they are anonymous Web browsers. Even your Web site tracking system sees them just as “unique visitors”, faceless viewers that remain hidden even to the most technologically advanced systems.

But this needn’t be the case. If through online lead generation we can tempt them to “raise their hand” by registering to receive a piece of content they value then you start to see the types of people that are visiting and begin to tempt them with the content you offer.

The first step in getting this hand raise is to stop thinking as an online lead generation marketer and more as a prospect intent on solving the problem(s) they want by using your product or service.

List out the problems they will be facing (or the jobs they want done), the concerns they will have, the information they need to suppor their decision. Hey even sit down with a few and ask them these same questions!

Then look around at your competitor Web sites and see what they offer your prospects in this same state. Make a list of the content available and that missing. And then start working filling the gaps.

Your lead generation list may include reports, research, buying guides, third party interviews, presentations even client case studies. Make your content rich and unresistable to all the ideal prospects that come your way.

Plus here’s some audio from me on why a Contact Us page is not on its own your idea lead generation device

I’ve written before about the small amount of time you have to impart your story in your subscriber’s Inbox.

So here’s a list of what should be in and conversley out of your message to portray the most in the time you have.

In

A single purpose
Bullet points
Short sentances
Underlined hyperlinks
Color to clarify not confuse
White space

Out

Animation (for the sake of it)
Over 300 words of copy text
Images that total more than 60k
Rambling prose

All done

Part of the job I do is working with customers as we both plan out an email communications strategy. The success of these plans are never assured. With a fair amount of relevant previous experience and a detailed approach the chances of hitting the success marks are good BUT there are never any guarentees once that first campaign starts running.

I always recommend to my customers that they take an emergent approach to their strategy once it all kicks off. That is for them to learn how subscribers are reacting to their messages and then to alter the messaging to suit the needs of their unique audience profile.

Yes, it takes time to make this work. (It is very easy when it is campaign time again to just run through the motions and repeat what was done before.) However from my experience, time well spent honing the strategy is very worthwhile.

Those committed to this approach are supreme testers. Subject lines, From names, times and days are all worked through the mix – in the search for the best results.

And gradually out from the fog of data overload the winning mixture “emerges” ready to take the challenge of the other tests.