Marketingsherpa Blog

We’ve reached the fourth and final post of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Marketing Job Seekers blog series, where we take Stephen Covey’s habits and help you practically apply them to your marketing job hunt.

Today, we’ll cover “Synergize,” which is all about working together – or as the old saying goes, “two heads are better than one.” The job search doesn’t have to be a solitary chore. This habit thrives on all that networking you’ve been building upon for years.

We’ll also discuss “Sharpen the Saw,” which wraps it all together in that the job search doesn’t begin and end with the job. It must all revolve around you, your skills and your experience. The last habit works to keep you at the top of your game, even through long gaps of unemployment.

 

Habit 6: Synergize

Synergy comprises teamwork and open-mindedness to solve problems. Author Stephen Covey says, “Valuing the differences is the essence of synergy.”

Really, synergy centers on the whole equaling more than the parts alone. If you practice the Win/Win mentality, then you can easily synergize your job hunt.

Work together with friends, family, old schoolmates, etc. You can do more together than apart. For example, while you might not be the best editor, you may have a friend with that skill who will look over your resume or cover letter for you. Perhaps you’re better with social networking, so you can show an old colleague how to set up a value-infused LinkedIn profile for their job search.

John Bennett, Assistant Professor of Behavioral Science, the McColl School of Business, Queens University of Charlotte, says, “Research tells us that between 60-80% of jobs are found through personal relationships.”

So, there’s a large chance an ex-colleague, classmate, friend or even an old teacher could be your ticket to a job offer.

Some people do not feel comfortable directly asking contacts if they know of open positions. However, there are ways to work around that.

Scott Howard, Executive Director of Operations, MECLABS, suggests asking others to review your resume for you, even if you don’t need the editing. This does two things: it indirectly tells them you’re looking for a position, and it allows them to see your credentials to know if you would qualify for any job opening they know about.

Remember, networking doesn’t have to be between one employed person and one non-employed. Job seekers can help one another too. Networking is a give and take relationship. And sometimes you have to give now, to get later. You’re probably not the only person you know on the job hunt. Be on the lookout for them, and hopefully, they’ll return the favor down the line.

Wendy Gelberg, author of “The Successful Introvert,” says, “Very few of us are walking around with jobs in our pockets, but we all have contacts and information we can share.”

Many job resources have access for only members or alumni. Maybe you know of an ex-colleague who is now interested in sports marketing. If you come across a position perfect for their credentials on your alumni job boards or professional associations’ job listing, then forward them the information. Keeping others in mind on your search will encourage them to do the same for you.

 

Key Takeaways

• Exchange skills of strength with network connections, such as cover letter editing in exchange for LinkedIn profile redesign
• Work with other job seekers to join resources together to create a synergized job search

 

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

Here’s how Covey describes habit 7 – “Balance and renew your resources, energy, and health to create a sustainable, long-term, effective lifestyle.”

You should work to better yourself on three dimensions: mental, social/emotional and physical. This is a great habit to keep in mind no matter what your job status might be.

Mentally, you should look for ways to enhance current skills or learn new ones. Take an online course, attend a conference in your field, or keep up on the latest trends through case study and how-to articles.

If you specialize in email marketing, have you earned a certificate in that area to really highlight your expertise? The digital world is here, have you learned the ins and outs of social media? Learning a new online skill might help set you apart from other candidates. Knowing a second language could do this as well.

While learning and practicing skills is a job search necessity, job seekers should consider three options that not only help sharpen their skills and provide real-world application and experience, but also help avoid large gaps in a resume: internships, volunteering and contract/freelance work.

Internships, for entry-level or more experienced workers, can offer great opportunities while unemployed. They can work as a foot in the door for many, as “52% of companies are likely to hire interns as full-time, permanent employees,” according to the Society for Human Resource Management.

In the article, “10 Things to Do While You’re Unemployed,” Karen Burns says, “An internship is also a good venue to practice new skills, build a portfolio, and (where have we heard this before?) build your network.”

Volunteering is another great way to bridge gaps in your resume and create new contacts. “6 ways to Fill Up a Major Resume Gap” puts it this way, “Spend time each week volunteering for a non-profit organization. Create weekly newsletters for the organization, coordinate fundraising events, or help write grants. This will help you gain invaluable experience that will look great to future employers and will help you meet new people and expand your network.”

For example, joining the communications committee of a local marathon fundraiser may put you in contact with other communication professionals, allowing you to network and create leads to job opportunities.

Contract/freelance work might be preferred choices for many, as they come with a paycheck, however small those might be. The route you take this is completely up to you.

You can venture on your own, creating on online portfolio, or you can simply join an established freelancing online network that will match you to assignments. Either way, you are gaining experience, earning money, and placing active work on your resume.

In her article about how to explain long-term unemployment in a job interview, Amy Levin-Epstein says, “Emphasizing freelance work or volunteer work is the ideal way to articulate that you have been making an effort to keep your skills current and contribute in some capacity.”

In addition to working on your experience and skills, Scott recommends you should also ask for feedback from job interviews. Be warned, you will not always receive a response. But, the feedback you do receive could be instrumental in readjusting your interview approach and techniques. Consistently renew your resources and energy to be on the top of your job searching game.

For the social/emotional dimension, job seekers focus on networking, as discussed in Habit 6. Keep in touch with old colleagues and classmates. Social networking makes this easy. Regularly reach out on LinkedIn, Twitter or another network to keep the dialogue open. The conversation shouldn’t start with, “Do you have a job for me?” Gradually develop and redevelop those relations for long-term use.

Donna Rosato, Money Magazine senior writer, recommends several ways to network, even for those who hate to network. One suggestion she makes is to schedule a lunch.

She says, “Yep, that meal with your former co-worker counts, even if it was just fun. (Especially if it was fun.) Even if you talked more about your wretched ex-boss than your career. Networking is not a constant series of mini-interviews. It’s a gradual process of building trust with people (maybe not that ex-boss) as well as just letting them know what you are up to these days. Aim for one lunch a week.”

Scott also warns job seekers not to forget the physical dimension. Exercise helps to reduce stress — a frequent emotion for many job seekers. He further suggests that you “take time for yourself.” As important as finding a job is, you cannot focus all your energy on it alone.

 

Key Takeaways

• Learn new skills through online courses, conferences in your field, or the latest industry case study and how-to articles
• Enhance your skills with internships, volunteering, freelance work or one of these other things to do while unemployed

 

And that concludes our break down of how all seven of Stephen Covey’s habits can wholly transfer to the job hunt. To end, we have one last piece of advice from Scott Howard:

“Walk in [to the interview] to understand, coming in with a Win/Win attitude, and end by sharpening the saw by learning for future interviews.”

 

Related Resources:

MarketingSherpa Career Newsletter

7 Habits of Highly Effective Marketing Job Seekers Part 1 — Part 2 — Part 3

The Indefensible Blog Post: Forget Charlie Sheen, here are 5 marketing lessons from marketers

Marketing Career: 3 steps to optimize your LinkedIn profile

Marketing Careers

In last week’s blog post, I looked at the importance of lead nurturing. Some readers wanted more, so this week, I’ll dive even deeper into the complex B2B sale with a few data points and some very actionable tips on lead scoring.

First, let’s look a few data points from the 2012 MarketingSherpa B2B Benchmark Report, featuring Jen Doyle, Senior Research Manager, MarketingSherpa, as the lead author.

This chart shows the value of scoring leads based on a survey of CMOs:

 

 

Here is commentary on this chart from the report (italic emphasis is mine in the quote):

 

Once organizations establish lead qualification practices and define the criteria for a qualified, sales-ready lead, they need lead scoring methodologies to accurately and precisely identify qualified leads. Lead scoring is the process of adding and subtracting points to a lead’s value over time based on various lead attributes or demographics, and behaviors.

Lead scoring is one essential component of an overall funnel optimization strategy; however, the above chart analyzes one of the key benefits of only implementing this one feature. On average, organizations that currently use lead scoring experience a 77% lift in lead generation ROI, over organizations that do not currently use lead scoring.

 

Okay, so lead scoring is clearly a good B2B marketing practice, but the next data point isn’t so positive. Our research, through a survey of 1,745 marketers, found that 79% of B2B marketers are not engaging in lead scoring.

This week’s B2B newsletter article – “The Complex Sale: Lead scoring effort increases conversion 79%” – is a look at how Bersin & Associates, a human resources and learning professionals research and consulting firm, implemented an entirely new lead scoring program over 2011.

I interviewed Paula Reinman, Senior Vice President Marketing, Bersin, to learn the process Marketing and Sales at the company went through to create and implement a lead scoring program that fit in with the existing marketing automation software and CRM environment.

I think if you take the time to read the case study, you will take away a solid sense of implementing lead scoring, but as they say in New Orleans, this week I’m offering some lagniappe, a little something extra from Paula in the form of six lead scoring tips.

Hopefully these will help either improve your lead scoring activities, or even spur you to set up a program of your own if you aren’t currently engaging in lead scoring.

Here are Paula’s lead scoring tips:

 

Be Broad

Think creatively about the behaviors on your site that indicate that someone is a potential lead and assign points to those behaviors. Filling out a form and downloading white papers are naturals.

Consider other things that show a prospect is investing time with you:

• Watching webinar replays
• Watching video or demos on your site
• Searching specifically for your company
• Subscribing to a blog alert or RSS feed

Everyone learns differently about your products and services.

 

Build for Sales

Work with your sales team to create a scoring program that reflects the sales organization and strategy. If you have a specific sales development function built to qualify leads for your account executives (AEs), make your filter broader. If your leads go directly to your AEs, make the funnel narrower since they are balancing prospecting with many other sales tasks.

If your sales strategy is to call anyone from a target company, even the janitor, find and pass as many names as you can. If your strategy is to contact directors and above from Fortune 1000 companies, fewer very high-quality leads are better.

 

Work in Progress

Lead scoring is a dynamic and adjustable marketing tool. Constantly review the quality and disposition of your leads and work with your sales team to figure out which leads are good so you can get more of those, and which are not good so you can set up scoring to screen those out.

 

Metrics Matter

Agree with Sales and your leadership team on the most valuable lead metrics for your business and measure them consistently. Constantly test ideas for improved lead quality, faster movement through the funnel and better win rates and share outcomes with the organization.

 

Be Transparent

Create dashboards that appropriate people in your organization can view as needed to show the number, status and revenue associated with the leads you generated. You’ll provide bottom line, business-impacting information that is hugely valuable to the organization and that helps you drive alignment on where your marketing resources are spent.

 

Joint Accountability

Sales and Marketing are accountable for growing the business by generating and closing great leads and the handshake between the two teams is critical. Jointly set metrics and expectations around the number and quality of leads from Marketing and lead follow-up time and process for Sales. Make Sales accountable for good feedback on lead quality, and make Marketing accountable for delivering required changes.

 

Related Resources:

Marketo – Bersin’s marketing automation vendor

Salesforce.com – Bersin’s CRM vendor

LeadMD – Bersin’s marketing automation and CRM consultant

Marketing Strategy: Revenue-oriented approach leads to 700% two-year growth

Special Report: When to Adopt Lead Scoring, and How to Justify the Investment

B2B Marketing: Combining sales and marketing knowledge to improve lead qualification

Lead scoring thoughts to share

Lead Generation

Technology and language have a strange relationship. Technology pushes the limits of what we can do. Language lags behind, trying to explain what we’ve done.

For example, take “cross-channel management.” Or is it called database integration? Or multi-channel management? Or a unified customer database?

All these phrases strive to describe a similar technology — one in which a company centralizes all its customer data and makes it actionable. The vendors appear to differentiate themselves in their language and their features.

But marketing teams are reaching the limits of their databases and they need more than snappy jargon. They need clarity.

Nearly 90% of email marketers say integrating email data with other data is at least a “somewhat significant” challenge, according to the MarketingSherpa 2012 Email Marketing Benchmark Report, written by W. Jeffrey Rice, Senior Research Analyst, MarketingSherpa. And just last week, we published a case study about a credit union that replaced its database to push its email marketing forward.

To help clarify this topic, I spoke with Kristin Hambelton, VP of Marketing at Neolane. Neolane provides “conversational marketing technology” (which is another phrase you can add to the list).

 

Where is your data?

Companies typically integrate their data in one of several ways, Hambelton says. First, many go à la carte, buying several pieces of software and working to integrate them. For example, a company might have a CRM system and add a marketing automation system on top of it.

One problem with this approach, Hambelton says, is that it can cause blind spots in the customer experience.

“Maybe you’re in the store, you buy a phone, you go home, you have a problem later, and you call their call center. They know nothing about you, and have no idea you just bought the phone. You had to punch your number in four times on their [phone system], and they still don’t know who you are,” Hambelton says.

Then there are platforms from companies such as Eloqua, Marketo and Neolane, which are typically used by larger organizations. These platforms provide a central database that compiles customer information across all the company’s channels. (Even this central warehouse can have one of many names, such as the “central data mart,” or “master customer record.”)

Each department receives a stream from the central database. For example, the marketing department sees which customers used a coupon, called a salesperson, clicked an email, or visited the website. The technical service department can see what products a customer owns, notes about their last tech service calls, and other related info.

 

What’s your price? What’s your preference?

Pricing for these platforms is typically based on several factors, Hambelton says.

• ­Deployment type – Some companies prefer to license the software and host it themselves. Others choose the SaaS (software-as-a-service model) and store everything in the cloud. Then there are hybrid options were a company stores its own data and uses a vendor’s software in the cloud to manage it.
• Active records – The volume of records you manage will also affect the price. You may have 10 million customer records, but it’s the number of customer records that you actively update and use that has the most impact on price.
• Service fees – There are of course any number services you can buy from a vendor. They can help with setup and integration, help you streamline processes, and even help design marketing campaigns.

Even though we’ve yet to settle on a universal language, marketers across the industry are realizing that they need better data to increase their performance. Data is powerful. But if it’s disorganized or not actionable, then it’s just noise.

 

Related Resources:

Email Marketing: Global telecom combines email and content strategy to segment database

Complimentary Special Report: 4 Email Summit 2011 speakers – full transcripts

Trigger Happy: Why emails are the magic bullets of marketing automation and shopping cart recovery

Email Marketing: How a credit union selected a new database vendor and increased revenue per email 205%

Image from: ÏŸnapshot 19

 

Marketing

I remember you wrote about press releases from the viewpoint of the publication/writer. I think you could write a similar one, for the subject of an interview. What do journalist look for when they interview someone for an article, case study, how-to etc.?

I recently received the above question, and I think the answer could be helpful to many marketers as they reach out to the traditional press, websites and bloggers to promote their products and services through those extremely valuable “earned mentions.”

Much of this blog post is going to skew a bit acerbic (hey, it’s human nature to complain about those who comically make your job more difficult), so I first wanted to let you know, and I’m sure many journalists feel the same way, that I genuinely love interviewing you.

And not just for work. At a party or on an airplane, I’m naturally curious about what people do for a living and always want to learn more. I’ve learned an invaluable amount of in-depth information about various industries and jobs from the interviews I’ve conducted, and on a personal note, have extremely enjoyed those discussions.

I know there can be a lot of pressure when you interview (especially for your first interview), and I just want you to be rest assured in knowing that we really look forward to talking to you and hearing what you have to learn.

That said, like with any other job, some sources do just drive us up a wall.

At the end of the day, you want an article or blog post that makes you and your company, product or service look good. But we’re the gatekeepers. So let me help you avoid these five things that drive journalists crazy …

 

1. When you don’t know what you’re talking about

Hey, it’s great when a journalist wants to interview you for an article. And you are probably a subject matter expert about many, many things.

But you don’t know absolutely everything.

There is nothing worse than talking to someone who doesn’t know what they are talking about. Earlier in my career, I thought it was my fault. Why am I now getting it? As I would jump from a source that didn’t really understand the subject to one that did, I slowly figured out that I can’t really learn from an unknowledgeable source.

I truly respect those who are upfront and honest with me about what they do and do not know, and keep them in my mental Rolodex when I can reach out to them as a source for a piece that more squarely fits into their wheelhouse.

 

Interview Tip: Clearly communicate to the reporter what topics you can expertly shed some light on, and which you can’t, before the interview. If you need a template to help you, here’s a note I recently sent (after a back and forth to get clarity on the subject) when asked to be a source about online advertising in videos …

I could speculate if you’d like.

For example, I would think that advertisers would value embedding, as should the content creators. It spreads their message to new communities. The only downside would be content creators who are looking to sell, for example, a membership offering. Then, it is a mixed bag.

And aside from worrying about traffic or views, they should worry about results. If they use a custom URL, they should be able to see how many “clicks” they are getting from the effort.

Don’t know if that’s the kind of info you’re looking for? If so, we could discuss that. But again, it’s speculation. I don’t have hands-on experience, or research data, about ad placement in videos.

Thanks,

 

2. When you’re unprepared

Interviews aren’t a pop quiz. And the onus is on journalists to extract the information. But as the old joke goes about the guy who prays to win the lottery but never plays … meet us half way there.

 

Interview Tip: As you would with any other meeting you have … prepare a little. You should already know the general topic you’re interviewing about at the very least (and some reporters will even send questions or specific data they’re looking for beforehand). But here are a few things you can gather to bolster the interview (this varies widely, of course):

• First and foremost, your thoughts – Put a little time into thinking about the subject, and you won’t feel caught off-guard or “on the spot” during the interview.
• Examples and analogies – Especially when talking about complex industry-specific or technical information, help shed light on the topic for my audience (and, hey, I’ll admit it … sometimes for myself as well), by having an example or analogy at the ready.
• Qualitative and quantitative data – Why should I believe what you’re saying? Back it up with some proof.
• Other contacts – Where can I go for more information? Making a connection with customers who are willing to talk or other subject matter experts in your company is always helpful. Other contacts you have in the industry are very helpful as well. If you tell me the people who work at your competitors whom you really respect … well then, you are a king among men.

 

3. When you don’t talk like a real person

Sure, we all know and love TPS reports, AJAX, DHTML, and .htaccess files. And using this industry jargon makes you sound smart when you say this because we have no idea what you’re talking about.

But since the goal of an interview is for the reporter to have an idea of what you’re talking about … please, speak human.

OK, I’m being a bit extreme here, part of being a beat reporter for an industry is being able to speak the language of that industry. Nevertheless, go easy. It will only help with the communication of the points you’re trying to make.

“I would say in my career as a reporter the most consistent element of a good interview is the ability to speak to the subject matter without getting bogged down in lingo. Sales and marketing is addicted to its private language. It’s like the business version of J.R.R. Tolkein,” said Jesse Noyes, Corporate Reporter, Eloqua.

 

Interview Tip: Here’s Jesse’s advice …

“The interviewer needs to provide the reader with a clear and compelling story — a relatable story. When marketers come in heavy on the lingo, they saddle the interviewer with the additional duty of interpreting their meaning for the reader. Skip that process and come in saying something real, in common English. Act like you’re talking to your friends or family, not the CFO.”

 

4. When you don’t realize that an interview is a two-way conversation

You’ve got a lot of fascinating stuff to say. And we want to hear it. But you have to let us talk as well.

In fact, most of the interesting information I’ve uncovered in an interview came not from the questions I prepared, but from the follow-up questions I was able to ask as part of an engaging discussion.

Freelance reporter Jeri Dube very nicely summed it up by saying, “I like it when people take a breath between sentences. It gives me time to clarify a point if I need to.”

Don’t get me wrong, most of this interview will be you talking — not us. And we can’t wait to hear what you have to say. Just make sure when the train leaves the station that we’re along for the ride as well.

 

Interview Tip: … and breathe. Plus, you can ask us questions too if you like. Such as:

• Can you tell me a little about your readers so I make sure I’m providing relevant information?
• Did that make sense? Would you like me to clarify that statement in any way?
• Am I giving you the information you need?
• Is there a specific type of example you’re looking for?
• What do you do in your spare time? (long walks on the beach, thanks for asking)

 

5. When you spin and shill

“Interviewees don’t do their companies any favors when they are so ‘on message’ that they don’t listen to or answer the questions I’m actually asking them,” Jeri said.

Honestly, this is the one that really gets to us the most.  We understand that you have a (thinly hidden) agenda. And, hey, that’s OK with us. Without it, you probably wouldn’t be talking to us in the first place. And we deeply value your knowledge.

That said ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The reason we’re writing this article is to provide value to the readers, not to promote your company. If you want to shill, go buy an ad.

“I look for sources who are open and honest,” Adam T. Sutton, Senior Reporter, MECLABS, said. “If you go into ‘sales’ mode or are reading lines off of a PR sheet, then I am going to ignore you until you sound like a person. Will I pretend to listen? Yes. Will I be wondering what’s for lunch? Definitely.”

 

Interview Tip: Don’t be shady. Journalists are among the most skeptical people I know, you cannot pull a fast one on us. Don’t shill. Don’t spin. Don’t read talking points. And don’t stick to the party line. Just be yourself, and help us help the readers.

 

Related Resources:

Public Relations: The best press release is no press release

Hire A Journalist! (We did, and here’s what we learned) via Eloqua

Content Marketing: Case studies are stories — so be a storyteller by Adam T. Sutton

Email Relevance: 8 tactics for leveraging timing, segmentation and content by Jeri Dube

PR Fame Communications

While gathering presentation material for the upcoming MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2012 (February 7-10 at Caesars Palace Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas), I had the chance to reach out to Jen Doyle, Senior Research Manager, MarketingSherpa, to get some additional background on lead re-engagement and nurturing.

Jen was the lead author of the 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report, and was very helpful in finding a couple of relevant charts for me, providing some additional comments on what this research means for B2B marketers.

 

73% of all B2B leads are not sales-ready

The first lesson Jen offers is almost three quarters of all B2B leads are not sales-ready. This means Marketing needs to engage with those leads in some fashion to move them down the buying funnel. This also means it’s possible for leads to “go cold” somewhere between entering the funnel and becoming sales-ready. Those are the leads Marketing needs to reengage with.

Here is the first chart of MarketingSherpa research Jen provided:

 

Chart: Average percentage of total lead volume that is sales-ready

 

 

And here is Jen’s commentary:

The above chart is the demonstration of why all leads cannot go directly to Sales.

At the time of original lead conversion, an average of 27% of those leads will be qualified to the point where they are ready and willing to engage with Sales.

The remaining 73% are not there yet. When these leads are prematurely sent over to Sales, they are not receiving the experience they desire and will look elsewhere for it.

Besides, do you really want your Sales team spinning their wheels making dial after dial where nearly three-quarters of those leads are not ready?

 

So, a large majority of B2B leads are not ready for Sales. This is where lead nurturing campaigns come into play.

The usual touch point for lead nurturing is email. These campaigns are greatly enhanced by utilizing marketing automation software to track and score those leads, and send triggered email based on demographic, firmographic, and probably most importantly as the lead moves closer to be becoming sales-ready, behavioral information. Behavioral information would include website visits, whitepaper downloads, webinar participation, and similar activities that indicate the lead is getting ready to buy the product or service.

With that in mind, this second chart is not good news for many B2B marketers:

 

Chart: 65% of B2B marketers have not established lead nurturing campaigns

 

 

Here are Jen’s comments on this dismaying bit of research:

Despite the increasing challenges marketers are facing today, the adoption of latest best practices to address them is sluggish.

For example, 65% of our survey respondents indicated that they have not yet established lead nurturing campaigns, despite a demonstrated 35% lift in lead generation ROI (2011 MarketingSherpa B2B Marketing Benchmark Survey).

Our buyers have changed and in order to succeed in attracting and converting them, we must adapt the way we market to them.

 

The big lesson here is that our research shows that most leads are not ready for Sales, and because of that reason, need nurturing.

Unfortunately, our research also shows that most B2B marketers are not taking advantage of lead nurturing activities, and because of that are most likely leaving promising prospects somewhere in the buying cycle, but not getting to the point of a closed deal.

Let us know what sort of lead nurturing you do in your marketing efforts. Also, are there any nurturing case studies or how-to guides that might best help your campaigns in 2012? Tell us what you would like to see and we’ll do our best to track those stories down.

 

Related Resources:

B2B How-To: 5 lead nurturing tactics to get from lead gen to sales-qualified

Email Marketing: Anti-newsletter strategy nurtures $1.5 million in leads in 4 months at Citrix

Lead Nurturing and Management Q&A: How to Handle 5 Key Challenges

Email Marketing: Global telecom combines email and content strategy to segment database

Trigger Happy: Why emails are the magic bullets of marketing automation and shopping cart recovery

Funnel Optimization: Why marketers must embrace change

Marketing Funnel: How to optimize your Sales and Marketing funnel in 5 steps

Email Marketing

Growing your email list has benefits beyond the obvious increase in size. For example, new subscribers are often more active than older ones. They just signed up for your emails and want to click and open them.

For this reason (and many others) you should always strive to grow your email list. Doing so will help keep your engagement numbers healthy and ensure your brand is connecting with new prospects.

Growing your database can seem daunting, though, with the number of tactics at your disposal. Thankfully, marketers have been running list growth campaigns for years. Here is a chart of 10 popular tactics, starting with the most effective on top. The chart is pulled from the all new MarketingSherpa 2012 Email Marketing Benchmark Report.

 

The Most Effective Tactic: Registration during purchase

More than 90% of email marketers say adding an opt-in request to the purchase process is at least “somewhat effective” at growing email lists. This tactic is also the only one to have more than half of email marketers (61%) saying it is “very effective.”

Digging deeper in the Benchmark Report, we find this tactic was only the sixth-most used among the 10 listed. The tactic is vastly more popular among e-commerce marketers (59% use it) compared to marketers in other industries:

• Professional or financial services: 31%
• Software and software as a service: 28%
• Education or healthcare: 26%

 

Most Effective Tactic #2: Online events (webinars, etc.)

Offering content or something else of value is a common way to build an email list. We’re seeing online events prove to be effective incentives. More than 90% of email marketers say they are at least “somewhat effective” at building lists and 41% say they are “very effective.”

Online events appear to work best in the software sector, with 46% of email marketers there saying the tactic is “very effective.” That number drops to only 24% in the e-commerce sector, which is understandable. When was the last time you attended an event to buy something on Amazon?

 

Most Effective Tactic #3: Website registration page

Website registration pages are, far-and-away, the most popular tactic for growing email lists, with 75% of email marketers using them. Their popularity remains above 70% across email marketers who target consumers, businesses or a mix of both.

Adding several calls-to-action to join your list throughout your website is an effective tactic, and you can greatly improve results by following best practices. Kodak, for example, captured 33% more email subscribers by updating its email capture form, adding more opt-in requests, and adding a capture form to Facebook. (The team overhauled its welcome emails, and added social subscribers, too.)

 

Related Resources:

MarketingSherpa 2012 Email Marketing Benchmark Report

Email List Growth: Finding low-cost and no-cost ways to grow your database

Email Research: The 5 best email variables to test

Email Marketing: How to sprinkle subscribers with a well-timed welcome in 5 steps

MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2012

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Email Marketing

This third installation of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Marketing Job Seekers blog post series will examine how Steven R. Covey’s fourth and fifth habits can help those looking for marketing positions (you can check out our discussions of “Be Proactive” and then “Begin with the End in Mind” and “Put First Things First” here).

“Think Win/Win” will help you decide which companies to apply to and what message to convey in your cover letters and interviews. The fifth habit, “Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood,” will also help job seekers in crafting their cover letter message and resumes, but also provides tips on preparing for interviews.

 

Habit 4: Think Win/Win

In a Win/Win solution, all parties should mutually benefit and feel good about the decision.  Covey says, for any type of situation, if both parties cannot reach a Win/Win, then they should agree on ‘No Deal’ or walk away from the table.

• A Win for the company

When I started thinking about how this habit relates to the job search, it reminded me a bit of President John F. Kennedy’s famous quote, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

Instead of your country, though, ask what you can do for the company or organization to which you wish to apply. Then, relay that answer as your value proposition in both your cover letter and interview.

Some companies receive thousands of résumés for just one opening. Chances are you will not be the only applicant to meet all their minimum requirements. You must provide some added value that could push the company forward in some way.

What is your “wow factor”? Determining how the company will win with you as an employee will answer a vital question for any job seeker, “Why should my ideal employer interview me instead of other applicants?”

Inform employers exactly what you’ll bring to the table that no other candidate can. Read more…

Marketing Careers

Janrain, a social Web user management platform provider, recently released its Social Identity study with the research conducted by Blue Research.

The study involved a final sample size of 616, with respondents recruited by email and screened to ensure they either purchased a product online within the past 30 days, or read articles or watched video from major media outlets in the past 30 days.

A key element of the survey was finding out how respondents felt about using a social login — Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. — instead of having to register individually at multiple websites.

Some of the results were very interesting:

• 86% of respondents reported being bothered by the need to create new accounts at websites and said they would actually change their behavior:

–        54% might leave the site and not return

–        26% would go to a different site if possible

–        6% would just simply leave or avoid the site

–        14% would not complete the registration

• 88% admitted to supplying incorrect information or leaving form fields incomplete (this result should come as no surprise to marketers). This figure is up from 76% in last year’s study
• 90% admitted to leaving a website if they couldn’t remember their login details rather than taking the time to recover their login information. This figure is up from 45% in 2010

The study also found that even though website visitors are becoming more frustrated with traditional marketing, they are becoming more open to using social identities for website registration.

In fact, 77% responded that social login is “a good solution that should be offered,” with 41% preferring social login over creating a new user account or using a guest account.

 

 

Among that 77%:

• 78% of social login fans have posted a comment or message to their social networks about a product or service they liked or thought others should know more about
• 83% reported being influenced to consider buying new products or services based on positive social media comments
• 69% report positive reviews might increase their likelihood to purchase a product or service
• 82% seek out, or avoid, companies based on social media reviews

 

That’s a lot of pretty numbers, but what do they mean for marketers?

To help put this research into a marketing context, I had the chance to interview Larry Drebes, CEO, Janrain. Here is the result of that interview:

  Read more…

Social Networking Evangelism Community

Triggered emails are rarely discussed as a standalone tactic. Buzzwords like “marketing automation” and “shopping cart recovery” are everywhere, but the automated messages behind them seem to be taken for granted.

After 2011, I am no longer taking triggered emails for granted. I interviewed scores of marketers that used them to achieve fantastic results by:

• Nurturing their newest leads
• Notifying customers that products needed service
• Encouraging visitors to return to a website
• Incentivizing customers to refer friends
• And much more

Through these and many similar campaigns, I have noticed that triggered messages have tremendously higher engagement rates than most other emails. Why is that?

  Read more…

Email Marketing

Sales were up 80% in 2011! Congratulations!

Except, well, now you have to repeat that feat in 2012 (or at least hold the line). So, how exactly did you lift sales?

Not only that, but your team is 80% bigger this year, and many of them weren’t even working with you when you initiated many of the changes that got you the big success in the first place (nice hypothetical problem to have, right?). Still, it begs the question …

 

How do your replicate your success?

Or how do you avoid making the same mistakes? Well, first you have to discover why you succeeded and failed. And then you need to spread that new business intelligence throughout your team and your organization.

I recommend forensic reporting. That’s a term I like to use to explain what our reporters do here at MarketingSherpa, and how we write the case studies that appear in our free marketing newsletters. (While our case studies are meant for external consumption, this is something I used to do internally as well for companies like IBM and BEA Systems to spread effective tactics inside the company, so I can see how the same principles apply.)

First, you have to understand these case studies don’t just exist somewhere. Marketers and teams go about their jobs and do various things. From these actions, they bring about successes or failures. But the reasons why and how they did it, which is the case study, is never prepackaged.

As the name “forensics reporting” connotes, you have to investigate and dig pretty deep, because often the entire picture of what led to the success or failure isn’t even immediately obvious to the people that helped make it happen.

Here’s a very simplified, six-step process to get your started …

  Read more…

Marketing