MarketingSherpa Blog

Originally published on B2B LeadBlog

Generating leads organically can ease the qualifying process, throwing “bad” leads out that are simply not worth pursuing. Growing a list organically also allows marketers to know more about a prospect right from the get-go, passing more qualified leads on to Sales.

However, when you start supplementing organic leads with purchased leads from a third party, how can you be sure you are getting the most bang for your buck?

According to the Salesforce 2015 State of Marketing report, lead quality is the No. 2 most pressing business challenge for marketers today.

Plymouth Rock, one of the largest insurance groups offering car and homeowner’s insurance in New Jersey, faced the challenge of ensuring lead quality.

“There are a lot of expenses associated with purchasing hundreds of thousands of leads annually, so we are constantly working to maximize acquisition economics,” explained George Hurley, Director of Marketing Analytics, Plymouth Rock Management Company of New Jersey.

The team at Plymouth Rock needed a way to ensure that the purchased leads were going to be viable with the ultimate goal of lowering acquisition expenses.

Identify “risky” or “bad” leads

With so many leads being purchased by Plymouth Rock, the team determined it would be cost effective to bring on a tool that would help identify bad leads instead of doing it manually.

George and the Plymouth Rock marketing team categorize bad leads, or leads that do not sell, in terms of how that lead was generated.

For example, if that purchased lead was generated in less than five seconds, that would be a lead Plymouth Rock would not want to pursue.

With form fields containing multiple questions and often multiple webpages, George explained that oftentimes, it is impossible for a person to fill one out in less than five seconds.

Concurrently, the fraud detection product can also tell the team if thousands of leads were generated from the same IP address located in a foreign country. If that’s the case, it’s highly unlikely they would be looking into insurance in New Jersey.

Change the way leads are purchased

With the knowledge of how a purchased lead was generated, the Plymouth Rock marketing team now prefers to buy leads from aggregators and generators that are also using the tool to identify bad leads.

Using the tool for lead audit and fraud prevention is now a best practice for the marketing team, which has lowered expenses at Plymouth Rock.

“We hope that others in the industry will follow this practice, driving down expenses,” George explained.

The marketing team couples the data now known on how that lead was generated with another tool that provides insights into a particular lead’s authenticity. An example is a lead for “Mickey Mouse” at “123 Main Street” with a phone number of “867-5309,” which is clearly false information.

“There are very different purposes in the two technologies, but both work to eliminate leads that we believe to be bad leads,” he said.

Communicate successes across the organization

By better understanding how purchased leads were generated, the marketing team has been able to improve the relationships with the sales team because they are providing better-quality leads.

Results are communicated via monthly meetings with stakeholders, including multiple leadership departments, and the marketing analytics group pulls daily reports to demonstrate how leads are performing on any given day.

“We’re very heavily focused on the acquisition costs, so that’s a conversation piece we’re always having, but with the help of the advanced analytics team … we are also looking into lifetime value metrics,” George said.

Since using the lead audit and fraud detection tool, Plymouth Rock saw a 68.8% decrease in cost per acquisition and identified 528% more fraud.

The team also noted that almost zero percent of medium- and high-risk leads converted, confirming the success of carefully analyzing how purchased leads were generated.

You can follow Erin Hogg, Reporter, MECLABS Institute, on Twitter at @HoggErin.

Source: LeadiD

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We are in the midst of an informational and technological revolution. It is constantly changing the way we communicate. There is an unspoken drive deep down in the collective psyche of humanity that is pushing us to make communication faster and universal.

Being able to express complex ideas is vital to our species’ survival. It’s taken us from caves to high rises. From wall paintings and smoke signals to emails and international phone calls, the way we communicate is versatile and fluid. What’s the norm yesterday could easily be archaic tomorrow.

As marketers we have to communicate our companies’ ideas, products and values to potential customers in any medium they communicate in.

As we move toward more instant communication, the marketer has to evolve with consumers. Just like the shift from direct mail to email, the savvy marketer must know when to move to a new technological medium and how to market correctly in that medium.

Mobile email

For several years there have been predictions about the end of email.  While email has changed significantly in the last 20 years, we now send more emails than ever before.

According to emailisnotdead.com, there are currently 4.1 billion email accounts that send 122+ billion emails per hour — and 53% of those emails were opened on a mobile device. The future of communication is mobile email, and there is already a lot of it going on.

In order to get ahead of this curve, email service providers (ESPs) are developing algorithms that automatically sort your emails. Google unveiled their answer to the overcrowded inbox late in 2014. A consummate innovator and leader in the email space, Google has developed a system that automatically sweeps your emails into three easy to manage subfolders: Updates, Social and Promotions. They have allowed more design elements to be featured in the subject line space and have made it even easier to clear a whole inbox in seconds.

So what does that mean for marketers?

It means that as ESPs move into the future, they will use bundling to sort people’s emails. This will most likely lead to the average clickthrough rate decreasing. However, the quality of the leads will go up because emails, instead of being cookie-cutter sends, can be personalized for individuals based on data marketers accrue. In the future, designers will have to work with content writers to make sure their emails stick out visually, alongside personalization.

Chart courtesy of: MailChimp

Marketing efforts will need to work in conjunction with all the other marketing options the company is using. We have to move away from thinking about individual campaigns and towards holistic, cohesive marketing tactics.

Read more…

We all see things go viral on the Web or certain products that suddenly take off. It begs the question: Why do some things get talked about more than others?

“And how by understanding that science can companies and organizations and individuals get their stuff to catch on?” said Jonah Berger, Associate Marketing Professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, during our phone interview.

Jonah, who will be a keynote speaker at Email Summit 2015, has studied how products are used and why behaviors catch on. His book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On, was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller on the topic.

Companies can get stuck in an “advertising” mindset, he said, and see that as the only way to communicate with consumers.

“While advertising is useful for some things, it’s not as effective as word-of-mouth for some other things. And so understanding how to both effectively use traditional advertising and word-of-mouth and blend those two approaches becomes really important,” he said.

Jonah provided four tips on how to best integrate the two and how to make your content go “viral.”

Tip #1. Keep the focus on customer

Marketers have a tendency to focus too much on the product or service, rather than the customer or user, Jonah pointed out.

It’s easy to speak in a language the customer can’t easily understand when you spend day after day up close to what you’re offering — “You know a lot about your product, your service, your idea,” he said.

Ask yourself a few questions to make sure that you’ve pictured the customer’s journey:

• Why are they using this?
• What’s in it for them?
• How can we be more successful by finding our messages in customer language?

The value of content done well, he said, is that “it’s not about you … the best content doesn’t yell your brand; it whispers it.”

While recently working on a project with 3M, Jonah said he helped them create content that focused on how the product could be used.

“So focus is more on the user, or the thing that happens, or the way it improves the world or people’s lives, rather than the product itself,” he said.

Read more…

Online chat is far more than a way to respond to customers. It’s an opportunity to optimize website content, pinpoint customer needs and even close sales, according to Brooke Beach, former Marketing Manager and current Marketing Director, Kevy.

Kevy enables businesses to connect and synchronize data to cloud apps. It’s a new industry, explains Brooke, so customers inundate the company with questions. Before live chat, Kevy responded to them via email. She admits the back and forth, full mailboxes and the time it took to clarify the issue via email dragged out the support and sales process.

So they took advantage of the immediate response of live chat and discovered it provided a much better solution by:

• Optimizing their website. Brooke instantly found out which pages communicated effectively and which didn’t. Specifically, there were consistently two pages that people used chat to ask questions about. She revamped those pages based on the chat discussions, and the questions dropped by 75%.“I’m working with content all of the time, and I can have a false expectation of the level of understanding others may have,” says Brooke. “The immediate feedback enables us to cater the website content to better fit (customer) needs.”

• Closing sales faster. “The beauty of chat is it gives a personal, human element to a flat website … you can get to know a person and what they’re looking for and immediately figure out the right solution for them,” she points out.In fact, almost immediately after Kevy installed live chat, a prospect used it to inquire about pricing structure. A sales professional was able to close the deal in a single conversation.

Watch the full interview and find out more about the value of online chat for B2B:

How do you move 18 to 20 segments of customers through the learning process of a complex sale? Mitch Zlotnik, President, and Seth Pauley, Vice President, both of Audimute Acoustic Panels, used marketing automation to educate customers with content on a large buying decision.

To learn the process they used to find the right marketing automation solution and agency to help create this low-touch ecommerce operation, I interviewed Mitch and Seth.

“We’ve been rapidly growing for the last eight years. We’ve found a good partner selection helps you grow your business. A poor selection extracts resources from your business, creates problems that hinder growth,” Seth said.

Mitch and Seth discussed their “Five Q” Technology or Agency Selection Process:

• Qualified (at 3:39 and 7:40 in the video interview)
• Quantified (at 5:52)
• Quick (at 5:05)
• Quill (at 8:30)
• Quality (at 8:39)

Read more…

Originally published on B2B LeadBlog

How much is your address book worth? I know that seems like a silly question because very few people even have a little black book that contains all of their contacts’ phone numbers and addresses.

I can remember when my father had a sturdy metal rolodex sitting on his office desk that contained all of his priceless contact numbers. I would sit at his desk and spin the cards around like I was a contestant on “The Price is Right.”

Fast forward 25 years and now we carry our cell phones, which have instant access to our address book, CRM, LinkedIn and other network applications and can easily connect you with millions of people around the world instantly.

As part of my research and training, I read a series of books on the subject of lead generation through strategic connections with people. I followed the advice and directions that I read in the books and was able to connect with two best-selling authors and set up a phone conversation with them about their methods and principles.

Here’s an introduction to those two authors and their responses to a few of the most common questions our researchers at MECLABS Institute are being asked regarding B2B Marketing:

Judy Robinett is the author of How to Be a Power Connector: The 5+50+150 Rule (McGraw-Hill, May 2014), a book that provides instant, effective strategies for meeting the people you need to know and bonding with them fast to further both your goals and theirs.

Judy is a business thought leader who is known as “the woman with the titanium digital Rolodex.” She has been profiled in Fast Company, Forbes, Venture Beat, Huffington Post and Bloomberg Businessweek as a sterling example of the new breed of ?super connectors? who use their experience and networks to accelerate growth and enhance profitability.

Sohail Khan is the author of Guerrilla Marketing and Joint Ventures:?Million Dollar Partnering Strategies for Growing ANY Business in ANY Economy (Morgan James Publishing, Nov. 2014), a book that explains a step-by-step guide on how marketers can set up and use joint ventures to help your business grow.

Sohail is the world’s premier “joint venture expert” as featured in Entreprenuer.com, Fox Business, CNN and CBS. He’s also the creator of the “Million Dollar Partnering System,? a well as being a sought-after business growth speaker, coach and author. Sohail works with corporate, business and educational establishments worldwide.

B2B Lead Roundtable: Whether the marketer is working with a startup or for a Fortune 500 company, there always seems to be budget limitations for marketing. As a B2B Marketer with tight constraints on time and money, should we invest in networking at events and associations?

Judy Robinett: A power connector focuses on being in the “right room.” If you are able to invest in networking at events and associations, be strategic about investing in the ones that your future customers are involved in. Most people attend the same events with their friends and wonder why they never get any new business or quality referrals.? Research your customers and find out where they network, and then do the same.

Sohail Khan: Guerrilla marketing is not about having the biggest budget or the largest marketing department; it?s about achieving success using unconventional means. There are free digital groups you can join such as LinkedIn Groups and Twitter that allow you to get really close to your targeted prospects.

B2B: How do I know if I need to expand the size of my current network?

JR: It is more important to have the right people in your network than to have a huge network. I learned this principle when I lived in a very small town. Between the people I worked with, my neighbor who was a state legislator and other volunteers I served with, I found myself being able to connect with any resource opportunity I needed. I focus on making sure my network of people expands wide across various industries and geographic locations and filled with people of influence and power that we have mutual trust.

B2B: What is a strategy you use for connecting with a decision maker if you have never had contact with them before?

SK: I will give something of value far before ever asking for anything in return. For example, I have given away my books, one of my training courses which sell for about $500 and I have also trained a company’s business development team “Joint Venture Strategies” for free in order to gain trust with large clients. I believe in the law or principle of reciprocity when prospecting. For the most part, people respond to kindness with kindness. Once I have given value, there is no longer need for a “cold call.” From then on, my interactions with the people I have served are warm and friendly.

B2B: What are some unique tools you use to connect with build relationships? (other than phone, email, and LinkedIn)?

JR: I was introduced one day to the co-founder of the ACT! Software, which was amongst the first in CRM available. He co-founded a new CRM tool called Vipor CRM, which I use to track and manage my connections.

SK: I use Twitter to connect with people. A recent statistic said that there are over 750 tweets delivered every second. It is a great place to generate a response and engage with people.

B2B: Why is it so important to become a “Power Connector” like your book describes?

JR: Nothing happens in this life without people being involved. The old networking model was transactional; it was based on who you know and what you know. The world has shifted to a relationship model based on who knows you, likes you and trusts you. At the end of the day, you want to be connected to people who have your back and will lift your future.

B2B: Why should a company consider a joint venture or strategic alliance?

SK: The joint venture or strategic alliance is set up to be a mutually beneficial arrangement for all parties involved. A company can contribute areas of strengths in return for another company compensating for areas where there may be gaps in resources or abilities. The goals for strategic alliances can be for cost-saving initiatives or revenue-generating campaigns. When joint ventures are organized and managed correctly, you can minimize risks and leverage rewards. That is a win-win situation.

In conclusion In my conversations with both Judy and Sohail, the most important principles are this: connect with the right people and add tremendous value to them.

“People don’t buy from websites; people buy from people” — Flint McGlaughlin, Managing Director and CEO, MECLABS (parent company of?B2B Lead Roundtable)

If you would like to know more about Judy or Sohail’s books, you can visit them at the links below.

Judy — How to Be a Power Connector

Sohail — Guerrilla Marketing and Joint Ventures

Each week MarketingSherpa features a book giveaway. This week includes both of the books referenced in this post. Check the MarketingSherpa Book Giveaway and sign up for a chance to win a copy of these books.

You can follow Josh Wilson, Content Writer, MECLABS Institute on Twitter at?@TheVillagePush.

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So, you have low blog engagement or a handful of loyal followers that you were expecting to blossom into a world-wide audience — but it’s just not happening.

I’m not an expert content writer or blog wiz. However, working at MarketingSherpa has given me insights that I would not have otherwise about what can make certain pieces of content successful while others flop.

Here are three common mistakes to keep in mind as you structure your individual blog posts and also determine your blogging strategy:

1. It’s all about you

The biggest mistake that content creators can make is centering their blogs on themselves.

They open with a relevant, beautiful challenge that the audience is facing, and then they ruin a perfectly good opening by presenting their product as the flawless solution — or their service as an end-all-be-all to those interested in a DIY experience. Content consumers aren’t looking for a reason to buy from you. They are looking for a resource to solve problems.

Be real, be relevant and be genuine. Make sure that your blog humanizes you, and explain how your audience  can learn from, and apply, your mistakes to their own campaigns.

Lastly, edit — grammatically and for content. Even the world of food bloggers (which I frequent) knows that the audience really only cares about how much salt is too much salt and why cream of tartar really makes a difference in the cookie recipe rather than just adding more baking soda. The annoyingly long charming story about your grandmother’s old pickup truck isn’t a necessary preamble for what I’m really interested in below.

Remember, every sentence should justify the reason as to why your post is solving the problem that your audience faces. It’s about them.

Read more…

What does the No. 2 song of 2013 and ecommerce have in common?

Blurred lines.

“The retail customer has an experience, and they expect that experience to be consistent, no matter where they engage with that company,” said Ryan West, CEO, West Music. “Our responsibility as omnichannel retailers is to blur the lines and make sure it’s going to be impactful, no matter where they engage with us.”

Ryan met with MarketingSherpa Reporter Allison Banko in the Media Center at IRCE to discuss the importance of providing relevant customer experiences, no matter where that customer is. This includes both online and offline channels.

Geolocation in-store and online

Ryan dove into his experiences in geolocation in West Music’s marketing strategy, sharing how marketers can leverage emerging technologies and platforms to take geolocation to the next level.

This is key to marketers with regional brick-and-mortar stores, such  as West Music. Ryan explained retailers can now leverage Bluetooth low energy protocols and in-store mapping platforms, which allow customers to see on a foot-basis where they are in a store to find products with ease.

This blurs the lines of ecommerce and in-store by using proximity sensing.

Ryan also explains in the video how his company utilizes simple site merchandising and IP address locators to provide a more relevant experience for customers online.

This includes providing relevant promotions for regional customers, such as a grand piano liquidation sale or an offer that would apply for national customers, such as a simple discount or rebate.

This is key for marketers serving local and national markets, as some sales and offers may only be applicable to a regional store location.

  Read more…

Over the past several years, marketers have often been faced with the conundrum of where to allocate funds in order to better compete in the mobile space. Should I focus my budget on the mobile app for my business, on making the website optimized for multiple device types (responsive or adaptive) or should I attempt to do both?

Take user behavior into account

While I feel like the question above has been well documented in other resources, I think one of the most important concepts to keep in mind is that whether you are focusing on a mobile app or on your website, user behavior should be considered first.

As the expectations of the billions of users with mobile devices continue to converge, the question should no longer focus on which medium (the mobile web or an app) you should focus on connecting with your users on, but instead on how you can most effectively connect with them no matter which medium you choose.

Luckily, there are numerous transferable principles between the world of app interaction and web design that can be applied with relatively little effort on your part.

Visual attention vs. interaction

Don’t forget the classics. Despite the ever-expanding screen sizes of devices,  in most regions, people still start reading at the top left of their device. However, it is important to remember that on touch-reliant devices, interacting with content at the top of the screen with your thumb has become increasingly more difficult as screen sizes in mobile devices have grown.

Why do you think Apple implemented a new “Reachability” control on the iPhone 6 that brings content from the top of the screen down about a third of the phone?

This being said, whether you have an app or a mobile site, make sure you prioritize content you want read at the top of the screen, but be selective in placing content you want interacted with at the top of most screens.

For items such as buttons, filters, drop-downs, quick navigation, etc., consider utilizing real-estate toward the bottom of the screen instead of toward the top to make the user’s life easier. Menus and navigation are still generally better at the top of the screen as the menu “hamburger” (see screenshot below) now seems to be so ubiquitous that it has become web-standard for responsive sites  Techcrunch also offers a great article on mobile navigation and reasons to “kill the hamburger” here.

Read more…

According to eMarketer, a marketing research company, ecommerce sales are expected to hit $1.771 trillion this year — with $1.233 trillion of those sales coming from outside North America.

Keeping this figure in mind, I sat down with Don Davis, Editor-in-Chief, Internet Retailer, after his trip to Shanghai to get some tips and advice for you as you expand your ecommerce business internationally:

We talked about the similarities and differences to the U.S. market, challenges of fulfillment and the important of trust to the Chinese consumer.

For example, when discussing trust, Don said, “Ratings and reviews are really important in China, because there are still a lot of fakes.”

Read more…