Fireproof List Building Tactics in B2B Marketing

MarketingSherpa recently published a chart, identifying the main list building tactics B2B marketers use. In its B2B marketing benchmark 2011, the company found email turned is the third most important lead generation for B2B marketers.

A closer look at effective B2B email list building tactics that work according to correspondents.

Registration during purchase is one of the list building tactics that is considered very effective. Prior to the purchase of an item or a subscription of any service, the customer is typically asked to register his information for quicker access to his account in the future. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Email marketing, Research Tagged With: , , , ,

Growing your Email Subscriber List: Seven Tips (and Some Social Media)

“The money is in the list”. A saying which is often heard when it comes to email marketing. Expanding their email subscriber list is an ongoing priority for email marketers.

The most important element is making sure that your emails offer relevant content and treating your future subscribers as human beings.

When defining an email subscription strategy, think from the viewpoint of the people you would like to subscribe. What do they want? What are their needs? What are their preferred communication channels? [Read more...]

Filed Under: Email marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

3 Essential Email Marketing Message Types

3 Essential Email Marketing Message TypesIt’s easy to bore your customers to death with email: just send them the same type of message repeatedly and you’ll succeed.  We’re often guilty of this when we send our e-newsletter and little (or nothing) else. 

And while a newsletter absolutely has a place as a staple in your email marketing program, it should be far from the only type of message you send your customers on a regular basis.

After your email newsletter (which can be weekly, every other week, or monthly depending on how much content and activity you have), I recommend weaving these three message types into your email marketing stream at regular intervals throughout the year: [Read more...]

Filed Under: Email marketing Tagged With: , ,

SWYN: Why People Do and Don’t Share Email Marketing Content on Social Networks

SWYN: Why People Do and Don't Share Email Marketing Content on Social NetworksI recently came across Contactlab’s European E-mail Marketing Consumer Report 2010 and found some very interesting statistics for European email users. It’s a large report at 40 some pages, but a few questions about sharing newsletter content via social networks caught my eye and I wanted to briefly touch on that subject here.

When asked if they had ever shared a newsletter with friends on a social network, the overwhelming response was negative with 73% saying no, they hadn’t. Breaking down 27% who did share by country, Italy had the highest percentage with 41% while the United Kingdom and Germany were at the bottom with 17% and 15% respectively.

When those who did share a newsletter via social were asked why, 59% stated they shared the newsletter content via social because it was interesting. The next most popular reason for sharing was a discount offer which ranked number one among 36%.

Nice to see that at least among the Europeans surveyed here, the main reason to share was because the content of the newsletter was interesting, meaning it was relevant to them. Perhaps even a good discount offer isn’t going to trump relevancy when it comes to sharing something from a newsletter.

What about the reasons for not sharing an email marketing newsletter via social? When asked that question, 59% stated they don’t like distributing promotional messages. Even more intriguing was the second most stated reason for not doing it; not knowing how. Of those surveyed, 17% said they didn’t know how to share content from a newsletter via social. When it was broken down by country, the highest percentage was in the U.K. at 26%, followed by users in Spain and Italy at 22% and 20% respectively. At the other end of the scale, only 5% of Germans reported the same issue.

Obviously we’d all love people to share our content, but are email marketers really encouraging people enough? All you really need to do is ask people to share your newsletter on social just as you would ask them to forward to a friend. Of course, this presupposes that your email marketing newsletters are rich with relevant and engaging content which people would just love to pass along.

It all seems reasonably straight forward here:

  • Produce newsletter content which is relevant and engaging which makes people look good when they share it with friends.
  • Ask people to share your content by working the invitation to do so wherever it fits in your newsletter.
  • Have sharing buttons displayed prominently in your newsletter. Put them at the top, bottom and even after each piece of sharable content.

No matter what you do, there’s no guarantee people will share your newsletter content with friends via social media, but it’s a good bet they won’t if you don’t bother to ask.

Filed Under: Email marketing, Social media marketing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

QR Codes: When, Where, Why & How

QR Codes When, Where, Why & HowLast week I posted an introduction to QR codes inspired by a whitepaper from GetResponse. Today, I thought we might consider the when, where, why and how of applying QR codes.

 

 

A camera equipped smartphone which has the right reading software installed can scan these codes in an instant and then do such things as:

  • Load a webpage
  • Contact info
  • Send an SMS
  • Provide Geo location
  • Register for a contest
  • Sign up for your newsletter
  • Follow a link to a web page
  • Play a YouTube video
  • Like a fan page on Facebook
  • Add a calendar event
  • Wifi network login

It’s a pretty cool way to convey some basic information quickly and easily. Chances may be better today that someone has a smartphone in their pocket rather than a pen, so allowing them to scan GEO location info or even an address and phone number from a billboard or print advertisement is convenient.

Size, location and how the QR code is integrated into your material are key considerations. Obviously you want people to notice the code so they’ll scan it, but not make it so overpowering that it dominates or distracts from other elements.

QR codes are still a novelty, but don’t go over the top with them. Try to use them in a way which saves someone effort and time. Again, think about the fact that it’s likely easier to find a phone in a purse or pocket than a pen and paper. What relevant information can you convey via QR code which will save someone a little hassle?

If you’re going to use QR codes consider that there are probably two things which really attract a mobile phone user to scan them:

  1. Convenience – scanning a QR code is certainly easier than typing something in or writing it down.
  2. Surprise/novelty factor – It’s that Easter egg effect and you should have something fun and worthwhile in the egg to reward them.

Remember, you’re asking people to reach into pocket or purse and snap a picture of the code to initiate an action. Don’t disappoint them! Give them something for the effort! Send them to your newsletter sign-up page and then let them download a discount coupon.

It may seem a bit redundant to put a QR code into an email. These codes appear to be best suited to connect the non-digital world via smartphones. Of course, there’s also a convenience factor in being able to quickly scan info into your phone from a website or email. However or wherever you use the codes, convenience and creativity should be guiding principles.

If you are still wondering about what QR codes are and how they work, the best way to reduce any confusion would be to try creating some. Here are three free QR code generators you can use:

  • KAYWA
    A nice simple generator
  • Zxing
    Easy to use with more abilities such as Geo location and WiFi
  • Beqrious
    Another good generator which also allows you to easily create QR codes linking to social media profiles and allows you to include graphics with the code image.

I think you can get pretty creative with QR codes so long as you don’t forget the main purpose is convenience for the user. If you do take the novelty approach, make sure you always reward someone for their time and effort.

Filed Under: Email marketing, Mobile marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

Your Email Marketing List: Consider the Source

Your Email Marketing List: Consider the SourceIf you listen to the email marketing industry, you’ll hear the constant refrain about how important it is to segment your list and target your content to keep your subscribers happy. It’s solid advice, no doubt about it. But oftentimes, the focus of the segmentation argument centers on the typical demographic, psychographic, geographic and engagement data. Again, all good things.

But, there tends to be one key ingredient to the list building meal that’s missing: Source of Entry. Namely, where did the subscriber come from?

  • Did they come from your website (what some would call a “Natural or Organic Subscriber”)?
  • Did they subscribe to get some free content from you like a whitepaper?
  • Were they a co-reg subscriber?
  • A cost/incentive subscriber?
  • An eAppend list, rented list, or (dare we say it as we wince greatly) a purchased list?

    Why is source of entry important? Because your metrics will differ based on it.

    For many, a natural subscriber tends to be the most responsive—at least during the “Honeymoon Period,” and hopefully longer if you deliver the content they signed up to receive.

    Once you move your list-building efforts into other areas, including incentivized tactics (“Subscribe for a chance to win an iPad!”), Co-Reg, and less-than-thrilling tactics (List rental and (gag) Purchase), you begin to dilute your list with what will surely be a higher rate of non-opens, unsubscribes, and complaints and a lower rate of conversions.

    Need some numbers? In Scott’s previous life, conversion numbers looked like this:

    • Website subscribers: 25%
    • Other subscribers: 8%

    By contrast, spam complaints were noticeably higher from “Other” sources. The numbers looked like this:

    • Website subscribers: 19%
    • Other subscribers: 57%

    (Yes, dear readers, you can’t totally avoid spam complaints.)

    As you can see from the numbers, understanding the dynamics of your subscriber lists will help you in future mailings as well as enable you to set reasonable expectations for those lists. If you segment your lists, consider doing so by subscriber source and basing your reporting on those segments as well.

    Basing your reports on subscriber source as a segment will reveal a boatload of valuable information about how well your different tactics are working for you. Be sure to remember to NOT dilute your natural subscriber metrics with a bunch of outside subscriber data that will bring down your overall metrics.

    Always present your reports with metrics from individual segments, and then show the overall numbers. You’ll be able to show how certain sources affect your total numbers for a campaign. Plus, you’ll be able to calculate revenue based on subscriber source and match that against your acquisition costs for each source.

    Now that’s really useful email marketing data you might not be using today. It can make your tomorrow much easier and more profitable.

    Cheers, Chris

    Thanks to Scott Cohen for his help on this post.

    Filed Under: Email marketing, Email marketing metrics Tagged With: , , , ,

    Email and an Interactive PDF

    Email and an Interactive PDF

    Ed note: This is a guest post from Jordie van Rijn

    Earlier this year, at FinovateEurope a new email marketing product was launched. Now I know most email marketeers aren’t that into finances and probably missed out on it, because the event was mainly about finance. But this launch is actually quite an exciting development, so I thought I’d share it with you.

    Interactive PDF
    Well you know about PDFs right? The new product is based on a pdf. But an interactive PDF. That is basically a mini-website inside your document on your local machine. It can have multiple ‘virtual pages’, you can sort data, have interactive graphs, group data and have animations and videos. Or just have multiple pages with text and visuals. You can host the PDF on a server and only include a link in the email, or you can send it as an attachment.

    Take a look at the screenshot. The tabs are “virtual pages” and you can use forms in the PDF (yes also newsletter sign-up or preference centers), if I am not mistaken, the data can be updated in real time.

    Global Card Interactive PDF in Email
    Especially for Billing
    The interactive PDF wasn’t first shown at Finovate for nothing. It can be locked with a password and you can use it to send bills, payment overviews and in this case a “one click payment”. The ESP that has developped this one click payment has always been focussed on digital billing so that is logical.

    Will we see more interactive pdfs?
    I believe this technology can be used for more than only billing, you can make a mini-website at a personal level and send it like a message. The experience you get from this is quite different than if you would go to a “real” mini-site, it still feels like a message and it still feels personal. Also the fact that you can easily update and keep it password protected brings quite some extra potential. There might be some concerns with the attachment(size) in some countries, or maybe some hesitation by readers to open attachments, o and you do need acrobat reader to access the interactive PDFs. So there are some things to concider, but the possibilities are just as big.

    For now it’s a usefull way to get your bills digal, with the possibility to add some extra’s. Some very cool extra’s.

    Full disclosure: I am in no way affiliated with the ESP that launched this. But you have to give them some credit for this kind of innovation, it’s quite unique. You can see a movie of Finovate presentation here. Or if you want to see this demo, you can send them an email and they automatically send you the demo mail back.

    Would you use an interactive PDF and for what?  I’d love to see more services that use use interactive PDF’s. So if you know about any, please post them in the comments.

    About the author

    Jordie van Rijn is an independent email marketing consultant, with over 8 years of hands-on experience in e-mail and loyalty marketing. Founder of the email vendor selection website. He works with small and A-list brands to inncrease their email marketing succes.  Regularly shareing his observations and thoughts via blog and speaking at events.

    Filed Under: Email marketing Tagged With: , , ,

    Question: Why Do My Clients Unsubscribe from My Email Marketing?

    Question: Why Do My Clients Unsubscribe from My Email Marketing?Answer: They just want out of a bad relationship.

    That may sound a bit strange at first, but it could be the reason.  You see the most important part of email marketing isn’t delivery rates or open rates or even clicks… it’s your relationship with your client.

    Do they value your business relationship?  Do you?  Are you sending them relevant and valuable content?”  Do you send the same content to everyone?  Do you know what your client wants or needs from this business relationship?

    Business relationships are not unlike personal ones. We all have expectations, wants and needs that we expect the other party to provide in the relationship.  When it comes to your business and email relationship, you must deliver value.  Value will keep them engaged and reading.  Value is not always a discount on services or goods.  Value can be knowledge, education and or solutions to a problem.

    Content should be targeted to the needs of the client.  After all, this is a one-to-one medium, not a soapbox for shouting everything.  Segment your lists and customize your content to better address the message you want the client to receive.  Make the call to action something that entices each group for their specific needs.  Dynamic Content is a great way to create one email but have the content change based on the subscribers profile and preferences.

    For those of you new to email marketing, dynamic content is when you create content that is targeted to specific subscriber on your list.  These subscribers have a specific identifier or preference in their subscriber profile record.  Content is then tied to that preference and they get only the content they want.

    New clients need different content than existing clients as do potential clients, make sure you give them what they need.  Review the content you’re delivering and your subscriber’s preferences and work towards delivering the content they want and you’ll have happier subscribers.

    Cheers, Chris

    Filed Under: Email marketing Tagged With: , , ,

    Only Influencers: Email Marketing’s Exclusive Club

    Only Influencers: Email Marketing's Exclusive ClubI’m proud to say I’m a member of a rather exclusive online club known as “Only Influencers.” This list/site/community focuses on email marketing, but also discusses other channels such as social and further expansion is planned. Over the past year I’ve been a member, it has repeatedly provided me with great information and insight marketing leaders and visionaries.

    I wanted to share this great resource with you and so I emailed Bill McCloskey, the founder, and asked him a few questions.

     

     

    Can you give us a quick history of Only Influencers?

    Bill: Back around 2001 I started a small listserv for people in the digital marketing community called the One Hundred Club. It was really a who’s who of digital marketing at the time. When I founded and launched Email Data Source (now eDataSource), it made sense to create a separate list that focused on email marketing, so in 2005 I started The Inbox Insiders, which was an invitation only list, again, for the who’s who of email marketing.

    I’ve always been interested in the idea of community and The Inbox Insiders really became the go to community for professionals in the email marketing industry. For instance, the EEC (Email Experience Council now run by the DMA) had its origins on the Inbox Insiders via member Jeanniey Mullin.

    In August of 2010, I was itchy to start a new venture and I wanted to explore some of the ideas I had on community building and I decided to launch Only Influencers, a private invitation only network for digital marketers. I started building the site in the fall of 2010 and by February 2011 I was ready to flick the switch and OI became a full time membership funded organization. It was important to me that, as part of the business model, I NOT take any advertising or sponsorship money, which I feel eventually corrupts any type of trade organization. OI is 100% membership funded. The members pay a small fee (currently $20 a month or $200 a year) to participate. I work full time on behalf of the members and their needs.

    Can you give us a snapshot of your members?

    Bill: Well, I think the best way to answer that question is to direct you to our testimonials page where you can see that snapshot and read what the members think. You’ll find member testimonials here.

    What’s in it for paying members? What kind of features and information will they get out of it?

    Bill: When we evolved from The Inbox Insiders to Only Influencers, I added multiple lists so besides the dedicated Only Email list, we have lists that act as an early warning system for systemic ISP outages (Only Delivery), lists with a social media focus (Only Social), meetup lists for all the major industry trade shows (Only EEC, etc), and we have a website were we archive the last 6 years of discussions, archive white papers, reports, case studies. I’ve started something called The Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing that I’m using as an organizing construct for all the discussions that have happened and the things the Insiders and now The Influencers are interested in on a daily basis.

    We also run a job placement service (at no cost to the employer or employee) and we post new jobs each Monday in a newsletter (Jobs Monday). And every Tuesday and Thursday I send out a newsletter called The 411 which is a listing of all the articles written that week that are worth reading, along with a summary of each article and my personal rating on whether it is a “must read”, “worthwhile”, or for newbies only. In addition we provide a salary guide that is drawn from polls of the Influencers themselves.

    We are about to launch local chapters around the world for monthly meetings and meetups focused on education and networking. We’ll shortly be announcing chapters in New York, Atlanta, Boston, Boulder, and San Diego.

    Is it suited for beginners or strictly for seasoned vets of the marketing industry?

    Bill: It was important to me that, in launching Only Influencers, it not become a list for just the people who are currently Influencers in the industry, but for those who want to be Influencers and are just starting out. I wanted it to be a place to educate the next generation of digital marketers and provide a safe haven and a mentoring environment for those coming up. Besides the superstars who are part of the list, we have many people who have come from other disciplines and are suddenly thrust into email and social media responsibilities and need to get up to speed fast. They can ask their questions, behind closed doors, to the largest brain trust of email marketers ever assembled.

    Does it focus primarily on email marketing? Do you cover content marketing in general and social marketing?

    Bill: Coming off the Inbox Insiders, there is a decidedly email focus currently, but that will change as we expand. I’m a big believer in the crossing the chasm idea of creating value for a select niche before expanding elsewhere, so I wanted to make sure that the email marketers were taken care of first and that OI worked for them. But we are expanding into social media more directly and mobile, both of which are strongly connected to email marketing.

    What sets Only Influencers apart from free groups on sites such as LinkedIn or Yahoo for example?

    Bill: The free groups are great and serve a good function. But I’m a big believer that people treasure the things they pay for. OI is a “curated” list in the sense that every member has to be approved by me and that I’m 100% focused on the membership. The members also know and trust me to only bring on the right people to the list: those that are serious about the future of digital marketing and making it better.  There is a lot of behind the scenes work done to help each member succeed in their careers and I spend a good part of my time helping individual members with whatever they need: finding a new job, questions about their careers, or just a sympathetic ear to listen to. And I think the proof is in the pudding; people talk about issues they would not talk about in more public forums. And they talk a lot: 60-70 posts a day are not uncommon when there is a hot topic to discuss like the recent data breaches that occurred. It is a very active community.

    Is membership limited only to North America? Will European marketers get value from being members?

    Bill: We currently have members from around the world: England, Belgium, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Poland, and Sweden. Europeans are a big part of the OI mix and provide unique insights into worldwide digital marketing. This benefits both North American professionals who are expanding into Europe, and Europeans who want to be more connected to a worldwide community of peers. I have one member in very remote part of the world and OI is his main connection with the industry since he does not have a strong network locally.

    Can you tell us about any future plans you have for Only Influencers?

    Bill: The big areas of growth are expansion into related industries (social and mobile) and development of local chapters around the world for peers to meet each other, share ideas, and drive the digital marketing profession forward.

    Where can people sign up?

    Bill: You can apply for membership at www.onlyinfluencers.com. Each application is reviewed personally by me. Almost 90% of all new members are referred and nominated by current members, but if someone wants to join and doesn’t have a recommendation they can reach out to me directly at bill@onlyinfluencers.com. I will review your application and research your background. Once accepted, you can join the various lists available and start searching the website. As I mentioned, no salespeople are allowed, but those with a sincere desire to contribute to the digital marketing industry and its growth are welcome to join.

    Filed Under: Communities & community building, Email marketing, Interviews Tagged With: , , , ,
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