marketing

Does your funnel need fixing?

July 23, 2012

People come to your website every day.  They pop in and pop out.  Some spend a few seconds while others read page after to page, lingering for many minutes.

Wouldn’t it be incredible to not only know who those anonymous visitors are but what links, pages and information they clicked on?

Well, now it’s possible.  And you can have it for the bargain price of nothing. LeadLife Solutions is now offering a free tool called Funnel Fixer.

The free tool captures critical information about website visitors browsing your site, including detailed information on pages viewed, providing you with powerful sales and marketing insights.

“Many businesses are still struggling with lead and opportunity visibility – their websites are great marketing tools, but they’re also something of a black hole that doesn’t reveal who is visiting and why,” said Lisa Cramer, President and Co-founder of LeadLife. “Funnel Fixer not only identifies who is coming to your site, it also tracks their digital behavior so you know what products, services and demos have their attention and for how long.”

Funnel Fixer’s highlights include:
Visitor Insights™ – Companies will know who’s browsing their sites, even if visitors don’t fill out a form. Detailed page tracking includes time spent on pages, search words used, referring URLs, company information and auto-links to Jigsaw and LinkedIn. Daily emails with visitor detail are pushed to company users’ inboxes.

Prospect Interests™ – Links all previous anonymous digital behavior to a prospect once they fill out a form on your website. This sales intelligence is sent to your company’s inboxes on a daily basis. As a result, it is possible to tailor sales and marketing messages to the unique needs of each qualified prospect.

Buying Signs™ Outlook Add-in – Improves close rates at the bottom of the sales funnel by giving sales reps real-time alerts when prospects are reviewing information sent to them. Users that send emails via Microsoft Outlook receive detailed tracking on prospects’ opens, clicks, which web pages they viewed, and more.

Now, of course, this generous offering comes with a catch.

The catch is — they get to try to sell you their full suite of services, LeadLife.  I was given a guided tour of LeadLife and it’s impressive.  It’s marketing automation software with a twist.  The twist is… the people at LeadLife do most of the heavy lifting for you.  Each customer is assigned a lead management specialist who actually builds out the software solution for you, as well as advising you all along the way.

Check out this section of their website, where they outline how they’s solve:

• A sales productivity concern
• Maximizing revenue from existing clients
• Evolving your sales culture to a solutions sale

What’s possible with this technology is remarkable.  LeadLife makes it very easy to tap into both prospects and existing customers to increase sales, customer connections and the longevity of your customer relationships.

Fair warning — it comes with a hefty price tag.  But if you can’t afford the full solution — no reason why you can’t take full advantage of the free Funnel Fixer.

More

Marketing in the Round (is your marketing a 360° effort?)

July 13, 2012

You know those people who modify who they are, based on who’s around or where they are? They behave one way at work, one way on Friday nights and another way on Sunday mornings. I think it’s difficult to trust people who don’t live one, integrated life.

We react the same way to brands and companies. Part of what creates a sense of trust for us as consumers is consistent, integrated behavior.

That’s why I’m recommending you check out a book called Marketing in the Round by Geoff Livingston and Gini Dietrich. (click here to buy*)

It’s not about social media. Or new (or old) media. It’s media agnostic. No matter what media you use (and you should use several) it’s about weaving them together so they are all stronger.

I got a chance to ask author Geoff Livingston a few questions and think his answers will give you a good sense of what the book might offer you and why I think it’s a must read.

If you had to describe the content of your book in a single sentence (no run ons) what would it be?

GL: Somewhat conservative methods to approach integrated multichannel marketing in the digital era.

What one book that you’ve read do you wish you could claim as your own?

GL: Oh man, if I could only claim From Good to Great as my own!

In your opinion, what is the one trait that all uber successful business people possess?

GL: Tenacity. We all face trials and failure, but successful people in all walks of life get up and move forward. Successful business people usually find a new way or approach to make their original idea work.

What’s the biggest business mistake you’ve ever made and what did you learn from it?

GL: Naming my company after myself. I think Livingston Communications had the right premise – social media boutique – at the right time 2006-9, but was limited by its ties to me. I could not sell accounts and have other people service them very easily. Also, it was harder to attract top senior talent.

If I was smarter, I would have insisted on a different name that would have made scaling easier. I have learned this lesson in other ways since then, too. I’ll never build a multi-person business again that revolves solely around a singular personality.

Why did you have to write this book? What truth or insight was missing from the human consciousness — that you’ve now answered?

GL: I don’t know if my co-author Gini Dietrich and I made a difference in the human consciousness, but I do think we restored some basic integrated marketing values to the general conversation.

Social media dominates marketing publishing titles for past five years to the point that the sector has grown myopic. Ask most CMOs which tactics are driving ROI, and almost all of them will say direct marketing, not social media.

It’s not that social media is a bad thing. Fractured interactive media have produced these very important eddies of conversations for businesses. At the same time, no one person I know consumes only social media.

We need a more holistic picture. I think this book has redirected the conversation in some ways towards that comprehensive view.

After someone is done reading your book — what do you hope they do as a result?

Step back and think from the stakeholder’s perspective. And if they do, they may use the same marketing tactics, but they should be more inclined to make them work together to better serve people.

 

 

*Affiliate link

 

More

Twitter and Facebook ROI

July 8, 2012

This has to be one of the biggest questions banging around marketing conferences, blogs and social media gatherings.  “How do we measure the return on my investment (ROI) for the time, money and effort we put into Twitter and Facebook?”

To truly answer that question, you need to define your own ROI. If it is a dollar for dollar equation, then you need to be able to quantify/tie a value to the time spent, calculate the dollars invested and then put the proper tracking/measurement tools in place to link your social media contacts/connections to actual sales.

Are sales the only worthy ROI?  Probably not. Like all marketing — you start by knowing what result you want.

• Are you trying to create a community that will tell the world about your new book, product or ?
• Do you want people to sign a pledge or commit to a cause?
• Do you want email addresses because your sales cycle requires a lot of education and time, so you want to create a drip campaign?
• Do you want to identify like-minded business people so you can create a safe place to generate thought leadership?

I have nothing against sales.  It’s how we all pay our mortgages.  But I just want to remind you, there are many worthy outcomes of any marketing effort.  And that’s certainly true of Twitter and Facebook. As Stephen Covey taught us, begin with the end in mind.

This infographic from InventHelp (click here to check them out) begins to dig at the question and explore potential answers.  Take a look at it and then tell me — what do you want from your social media efforts?

More

Win a ticket to attend AdAge’s Invite Only event

July 7, 2012

AdAge is hosting their CMO Strategy Summit in a couple weeks (July 18th) in Chicago. (read more about it here)  The event is by invitation only and you have to be a:

• Brand Marketers
• CMOs
• VP/Marketing
• Agency Executives with Clients

They’ve got speakers (mostly CMOs) from companies like Build A Bear, Cabot Creamery and Virgin Mobile so you know the content will be pretty compelling.

Why am I telling you all this?  Because I have two complimentary tickets to give away.  

But the timing is tight — I need to give away these tickets on Wednesday the 11th, so you have time to make arrangements to get there.  So I am going to make it very simple.

Leave a comment, saying you are one of the four “types” listed above (agency folks — you do have to bring a client to get in) and that you will definitely attend.  I’ll use www.random.org to pick two winners.

Feel free to spread the word.  The more entries the better.  Also, if you end up not winning but want to track the live tweets — watch for hashtag #AACMO

Update:  Congrats to Roger and Joe – our lucky winners! I’ll be reaching out to both of you as soon as I get details from our friends at AdAge!

Thanks everyone who entered!

More

QR Codes – your destination should not be a dead end

June 26, 2012

According to the most recent statistics, 3 bazillion QR codes are scanned every minute. (Okay, maybe I’m off by a half bazillion but you get the idea) And truth be told… most of the destinations suck.

Come on ad agencies, big brands and web gurus — stop creating QR code campaigns that drive the user into a dead end.

What do I mean by a dead end?  A destination where I get stuck.  I watch your video, look at your desktop site (come on people!) or view your print ad (seriously?) but have no where to go from there.

How do you avoid creating a dead end? Remember that marketing is a series of “next steps” so give me one to take.  Try one of these on for size:

• Invite me to sign up for your e-newsletter
• Give me a chance to win something worthwhile
• Ask my opinion (let me vote, rate or comment)
• Give me the chance to share your destination with my social networks
• Let me request a sample
• Offer me a coupon to download or email to myself
• Make it possible for me to call your store/office
• Let me do some product research
• Entice me to buy something

If you can get me to actually scan your QR code, I must have some interest in what you have to say.  Don’t create a stunted, one-way conversation.  Give me a chance to continue the dialogue.

If we don’t start getting a whole lot smarter about the QR code campaigns we create — we’re going to train people that scanning one leads to a frustrating, unsatisfying experience.  Which means that pretty soon, they’re just going to be more noise.

Stop creating dead ends.  Instead, create a real conversation.

 

More

Find newsletter content in a flash

June 8, 2012

Drew’s note:  Here’s a guest post by Patrick Carver on a relevant topic — how do you create and sustain the creation of an enewsletter.

Don’t you just hate writing newsletters?  We all know the feeling. It’s Saturday afternoon and you realize the company newsletter is due to go out on Monday.  You can feel the blood start to boil when you remember how long it ACTUALLY takes to write all that content.  Don’t you just wish your newsletter would just write itself?

A great option is creating a ‘hybrid’ newsletter using a mix of original and curated content. Curation is a fancy name for finding relevant content (articles, videos, white papers, etc.), qualifying it, and then sharing it with your audience.

Using curated material is a great way to complement your own message and save a lot of time ‘thinking of what to say’.  You can use the outside content as a jumping-off point and establish yourself as a thought leader in your niche at the same time.

The first place to look for free content is through one of the these tools.  Google Reader let’s you add your favorite websites to a list and then view all their most recent posts in one place. A great way to monitor your sites without having to bounce around.  Google Alerts is another free tool that lets you add specific keywords to a list and then will email once a day with relevant links and stories.

There are a handful of social bookmarking sites out there like Delicious, Reddit, and Digg  that will help you find material but these aren’t always terribly useful.  Without a human curation element, there is way too much automated/aggregated content on there to really find what you’re looking for.

One of the best options for finding free content is using a ‘personal newspaper’ service.  The gist is that you add some topics that you’re interested in and then the software produces a personalized digest of the ‘best’ stories on that subject for you.  Some of the more popular products are paper.li , scoop.it , and Flipboard  but there are lots of these sites out there.  AllTop  is a great resource that will list all of the relevant blogs on a topic and display their latest 5 posts.

Now you just have to incorporate all that great content with your newsletter template. People often use an email marketing tool like Constant Contact, MailChimp or InfusionSoft for this. But, if you don’t like messing around with templates, you might consider trying FlashIssue  (it’s Free).

Newsletters can be a lot of work but it’s definitely worth the effort.  Don’t get deterred if your first try doesn’t come out amazing and go viral.  Stick with a core theme but experiment as much possible with different story-lines until you find something that really sticks.  If you can figure out how to speak to your customers in a way that makes them want to listen, you’re on to something big.

Patrick Carver is the Director of Marketing for FlashIssue, the newsletter solution.  You can follow him @FlashIssue or read more of his stuff on the FlashIssue Blog.

Related articles

• Zemanta – A Free Customizable Curation Tool(contentcurationdesktop.com)

  ---

• Info Curation and Aggregation Services, Tools & Apps(speedofcreativity.org)

  ---

More

Oops — can’t say THAT in an email! (stupid SPAM filters)

June 3, 2012

I’m working on our weekly e-newsletter (always different content than here at the blog — gotta keep it fresh!) and I’m writing about email marketing mistakes.

One of the mistakes I’m talking about is using phrases or words that trigger spam filters.

I’m in the middle of making the list and realize…”duh, Drew, you’re going to email this out to the subscriber list and basically, by demonstrating all the criteria that trigger spam filters…you are going to trigger spam filters!”

Sooooo, I am going to list them here and then invite the email subscribers to come check out the list in this safe environment. You, my blog readers, are the lucky recipients of this little technology work around, because now you too can see the list of stuff you shouldn’t include in your emails if you want them to actually reach the recipient.

Start reading here…newsletter subscribers:

As I was saying….every email software has built in spam filters and most companies add another one of top of that. Every email that is sent through their server – on it’s way to your target audience – gets screened by the spam filters. If your email matches one or more of the criteria they set as likely to be spam – your email will never get delivered.

What are some of those common filters?

• Excessive use of exclamation points or other punctuation!!!
• Using ALL CAPS (especially in the subject line)
• Bad code (copying a word document directly into your email software will often do this)
• Colored fonts
• An email that is just an image and very little actual text
• The phrase “you registered with a partner” (in other words…we got your name from someone else)
• The salutation “Dear” before the recipient’s name
• Attachments

(Newsletter subscribers…you can head back to the newsletter to read the rest of the email marketing mistakes or you can hang out here..but don’t miss the rest of those tips!)

To you, my blog readers — thanks for letting me bring the newsletter readers into your space. If you have an interest in checking out the newsletter content — you are welcome to sign up by clicking here.

 

Photo courtesy of www.BigStockPhoto.com

More

How to keep writing when the well is dry

May 31, 2012

From my mailbox:

I read your emails and your piece in the Business Record. I think a gal here at my company might have heard you speak at the NAWBO Conference last year (does this sound right?) Anyway… she said one of the things she took away was that you made a comment of how no matter what you had going on and/how you felt, you made sure to be consistent with your blog posts.

Some days I’m just not feeling it… like today, but I know I have to post consistently. Do you have any tricks you do to keep your head in the game or your confidence up when you write? I tell myself I’m my own worst critic and this is just one post of many… and regardless of it being great or crappy… it’s not going to make or break me.

My reply:

Hey there —

Happy to offer whatever advice I can. There are certainly days when I feel like the tank is empty. I’m either over scheduled or over tired or just over stimulated and I have nothing to say. Or, as you say — I’m feeling like what I do have to offer is lame or expected.

On those days, which fortunately are not all that often, I do one of a few things:

I cut myself some slack. I remember that one blog post is not going to make or break my blog and that no one is paying as much as attention as I think they are.

I sit it out. If I’ve just posted something on the blog (I average 3-4 posts a week) I’ll give myself permission to take a day off with the mental promise of being back on it the next day.

I go to my reserves. I always have a few posts written and tucked away for a rainy day. If I use one — I have to replace it AND write new stuff for the blog, so I have to be in bad shape to go to this solution.

I curate. There’s lots of good stuff being written out there and most of it goes pretty unnoticed. So on a day when I am not feeling inspired…I’ll go through my robust feedreader and find a gem that I think got overlooked by many. I’ll write a little intro, add some context as to why I think it is relevant and then post the link.

I seek out guest bloggers. I don’t do a lot of guest blogging on my site. But every once in awhile, sharing a different voice is kind of nice.

I use the answers to questions I’m sent. I get a fair amount of email from the blog and I try to answer it as best as I can. When someone asks something that I think others might care about too… I use it as content. (Like this exchange)

The bottom line is — you’re right, no one is going to die if your blog content is a little light for the week.  But it can quickly become a rut that’s hard to climb out of.  So hopefully some of the suggestions above will help you avoid the rut in the first place!

So — how about it readers — how do you create content when your well is feeling dry?

More

Are you making one of these 7 content marketing mistakes?

May 29, 2012

It seems like everyone is talking content marketing these days, like it’s it hottest thing since sliced bread.

Of course, for many businesses — this is just a new name for something they’ve been practicing for eons.  They’ve been creating valuable newsletters or writing white papers for years.

Which does not mean that you’re doing it as well as you could or should be.  Are you happy with the amount of people and the kinds of people your content marketing efforts are attracting?

Bigger question — how purposefully are you weaving a content marketing strategy into your overall efforts?

I’m betting your company is not harnessing the real power of content marketing because of one or more of these reasons:

1. It’s something that happens every once in awhile but not on a regular basis.
2. You create some content but don’t promote it well across all of your digital and analog channels.
3. You create content but you talk about yourself, your products etc. more than you should (you are selling, not teaching).
4. You produce some content but not in a format that is easily shared by your audience.
5. You do it in a silo, it’s not woven into all your other marketing efforts.
6. You don’t use an editorial calendar so your production schedule and topics are usually by the seat of your pants.
7. The visual presentation of your content is boring or worse — off-putting.

Recognize yourself in any of those issues?  This isn’t all new stuff.  MMG has been around for almost 20 years and we’ve always preached the power of content marketing –even before we had a name for it.

But thanks to our universal access to the internet and our ability to easily share files, visuals, etc. — this marketing best practice has taken on a life of it’s own.

If you’re not doing more of this than ever before — I think you need to ask yourself why.  And what it is costing you.

How are you implementing a content marketing strategy for your business?

 

 

More

The worst sales email ever

May 24, 2012

Maybe I’m wrong and you can top this…but check this out:

Hi folks,

Name Name here from InvestorGuide.com. Our network of sites reaches a business savvy audience of over 5 million people every month. We also have a million opt-in subscribers and 125,000 financial advisors ready to receive dedicated email blasts.

We’ve been in this business for over 10 years so we know what works. I’m trying to find out who handles media buys for your clients, and I’d really appreciate it if we could get an updated copy of your client roster. I think we can really make something work here.

Sincerely,

Ms. Name Name
Title
e-mail address

Hi Folks?  So who all got this and how did I get lumped in with them?  Send you an updated list of our client roster?  Are you kidding me?  Who writes these things and worse yet…who approves them to actually be sent to prospects?

This is why we have all the SPAM laws and why our email inboxes are so cluttered with junk that we can’t find the emails we want to receive/read.

If you are sending out emails like this — stop it.  Now.

 

Photo courtesy of BigStockPhoto.com

More