MarketingSherpa Blog

Originally published on B2B LeadBlog

For years, marketers have been testing messages on emails, websites and pay-per-click ads to determine which ones drive the most sales. At MECLABS, we’ve made this a science and have even patented a Conversion Heuristic to analyze the process.

A few months ago, we started applying this heuristic to a channel that is more than a century old – the telephone. MECLABS has its own leads generation group working with clients to help them drive more revenue through teleprospecting.

Last summer, we began applying what we learned from online testing to that channel and recently, Brian Carroll wrote about how using science increased teleprospecting sales handoffs 304%.

When I asked Craig Kasel, Program Manager, MECLABS, for a few insights into testing teleprospecting, he explained that testing can help deliver the right messaging to prospects.

“It’s a good idea to test your lead process to make sure you’re getting the appropriate messaging to the correct people,” Craig explained.

After speaking with Craig about some of the teleprospecting testing projects he’s been a part of at MECLABS to discover how B2B marketers could apply this science to their teleprospecting efforts, here’s our best advice from what we’ve learned so far.

Engage your call center

No testing will work if your callers aren’t completely on board with the idea.

To build the buy-in that produces accurate test results:

• Involve them right away. They’ll know better than anyone else what messages (or treatments) are worth testing.

In fact, you may find some of your callers are probably already engaged in some form of informal testing.

• Make sure they understand why they’re doing it, and why their role is so important. If they appreciate their purpose and are involved in creating the test, they’ll be more engaged and excited to help.

Build a simple structure

Determine the problem you’re trying to solve, the question that will help solve that problem, and the results that will help you answer the question.

We do this by developing a research plan, which has:

• A primary research question – Which statement will help us reach a decision-maker faster?
• A primary metric – Number of decision-makers reached.
• A secondary metric – Number of sales handoffs.
• A problem statement – Contacts were hesitant to provide the name of the decision maker.
• Test hypothesis – We will find out which statement best encourages the contacts to give us decision-maker information.

Determine which approach to testing works best for your organization

• Sequential tests – Callers test a single message for a time period, and then test another message for a time period.

Craig recommended sequential testing if you are going to have the same callers executing both tests.

“This is also the type of test we typically run because it’s easiest,” Craig explained. “If one of our lead generation specialists discovers a new approach they think works better, we let them try it and then measure the results.”

• A/B split tests – Measure multiple messages simultaneously. This is better for larger call centers where you have the manpower to have separate people test separate messages in the same time frame.

Test one variable at a time

This way, when you see the result of the test, you will know precisely which variable – the general element you intend to test – influenced it. When you test multiple variables at once, you can’t isolate what caused the results.

Here’s an example of three test scripts based on the research plan above. The portions bolded are the elements of the message we tested.

Control

Hello, ___, my name is Jane and I am calling with The Widget Company.

We are currently the third-largest widget company in the nation offering competitive prices and solutions to make your job easier. When we last spoke, you told me that you use a consulting service to select widget support. Could I have your consultant’s information so the next time they choose widget support, we can be included in their evaluation?

Treatment A

Hello, ___, my name is Jane and I am calling with The Widget Company.

When we last spoke, you told me that you hired a consultant to select widget support. I wanted to let you know that we have a widget sale and I wanted to speak with your consultant to see if our sale on widgets would be a good fit for you. How can I reach them?

Treatment B

Hello, ___, my name is Jane and I am calling with The Widget Company.

When we last spoke, you told me that you work with a consultant to select widget support. Since we do not nationally advertise and may not have had the opportunity to work with your consultant, we would like to share our information with them. I would like to get your broker contact information in order to be in consideration when they next do their evaluations for you.

Validity starts with confidence

Level of confidence is a statistical term that you’ve reached a certain pre-established level of probability in a test. We want to minimize the chances that the difference in the metrics of interest between the treatments is due to random chance.

For example, a test with a 95% level of confidence has only a 5% chance that the observed difference is random chance.

Here are some of examples of validity threats that can negatively affect a test’s level of confidence.

• Sample distortion effects – This happens when your sample of calls is too small to determine a 95% level of confidence in your testing.

A sufficient sample size depends on your existing success rate. For instance, if you’re measuring the number of sales leads, and your typical success rate is two leads for every 100 calls, then making 500 calls will give a better estimate of your true lead rate than only making 200 calls.

The lower your existing success rate is, the more people you will have to call to achieve a valid test.

Also, it is possible to work with small sample sizes, but the caveat here is your tolerance for risk when making business decisions based on less confidence in your sample pool.

• List pollution effect – You can’t run a new test or treatment by the same list. The list has to be fresh to each test. For example, if you need 500 contacts to achieve validity, you can’t call a list of 250 people twice.
• History effect – This happens when tests are too drawn out so influences outside the treatment are more likely to skew results. With A/B testing, you will avoid this since both tests run simultaneously. Try to compress the time span of your testing. We prefer one to two weeks.
• Selection effect – This happens when test subjects aren’t distributed evenly. For instance, one treatment is tested on a list that’s never been called before and another treatment is tested on a list that that is months old.

• Channel selection effect – In teleprospecting, your channel isn’t a pay-per-click advertisement or website; it’s the person who is making the call. Channel consistency is critical to ensuring test validity.

On a website, you can completely control the presentation of value. That’s impossible to do with phone calls. However, you can make them more consistent by:

• Providing a detailed script for callers to follow.
• Training them on how to use the script.
• Recording all calls and listening to at least 50% of them to make sure tone and inflection are similar from call to call.

Consider every test a winner

Even if a test results in fewer conversions, you still haven’t wasted time or money. You’re just one step closer to understanding what works. In fact, sometimes we learn more from a losing test than a winning one.

Photo attribution: Cropbot

Related Resources:

Lead Generation: How using science increased teleprospecting sales handoffs 304%

Lead Gen: A proposed replacement for BANT

Landing page Optimization online course

Customer Connection: Does your entire marketing process connect to your customers’ motivations?

Landing Page Optimization: Addressing customer anxiety

Landing Page Optimization: Test ideas for B2B lead capture page

Shopping from your seat is a beautiful thing.

Customers relish the convenience and ease of online shopping, but those on the other side of the screen know the process isn’t so effortless. Ecommerce can present itself as a multidimensional demon, frightening marketers with shopper abandonment and confusing consumer behavior.

However, there are plenty of marketers who have slain the beast on their way to success. Our MarketingSherpa reporters know this because they have penned many of these marketing heroes’ tales of triumph.

Let’s take a look back at the lessons we learned from these 10 ecommerce case studies.

Case Study #1. Ecommerce: Edible Arrangements’ countdown ad lifts same-day orders 8%

Lesson: Don’t assume your company’s existing features or services are on the customers’ radar.

The basis for a stellar marketing campaign doesn’t have to revolve around a new service, product or feature. Your company could have a pre-existing item that could use some additional awareness. Take Edible Arrangements’ same-day delivery service. Kaitlin Reiss, Vice President of Ecommerce, Edible Arrangements, told MarketingSherpa the service was the company’s “hidden gem.”

“A lot of people don’t realize that we have same-day delivery, even though it is not something new for us, so we realize that we will need to do even more to promote it,” Reiss said.

The hub of tasty fruit bouquets utilized simple promotion through a variety of channels to increase both email open rates and its same-day orders, too. Are your company’s pre-existing services being promoted to its greatest potential?

Doubtful. Despite the fact that those features may not be new to the company, it could be new to consumers.

Case Study #2. Ecommerce: Moving beyond shopping cart abandonment nets 65% more checkout conversions

Lesson: Targeting customer abandonment is worth it.

We’ve all been there. Perusing products on the Internet when the phone rings, it’s time for dinner or the dog is barking for a walk. No matter what it is that pulls us away from the computer, distractions are inevitable.

As an ecommerce marketer, understanding and reeling your consumers back in is crucial for garnering conversions. Many ecommerce companies have found success recovering customers through abandonment emails.

The case study above examines how Envelopes.com targeted category, cart and checkout abandonment with emails sent less than a week after the customer left the site. The campaign lifted the company to net 65% more checkout conversions.

Examine why your ecommerce site isn’t earning those sales. Is it internal, or could it just be the busy lives of your consumers? Sometimes, all it takes is a little reminder.

Case Study #3. Email Marketing: How an ecommerce site eschews discounts in favor of eco-friendly content

Case Study #4. Ecommerce: How Wine Enthusiast increased organic traffic 154% with content marketing

Lesson: Content can help you connect with consumers while building trust, too.

As an ecommerce marketer, you’re not face-to-face with your consumers — your computer screen is. Establishing trust and connecting with them is a feat of its own. In these two case studies, ecommerce companies utilized content to increase traffic and awareness of their brands to stand out in a crowded Internet space.

PoopBags.com – yes, you read that right – built an email marketing strategy on eco-friendly content. As a biodegradable bag for pups’ – er – business, the brand developed email content emphasizing environmental causes, charities and pet-related issues.

“It makes it easy to bond with people … knowing that we write about things that are so important, and we care passionately about, makes [writing email content] pretty easy to do,” Paul Cannella, Owner, Poopbags.com, told MarketingSherpa of the company’s content strategy.

Retailer Wine Enthusiast also put content into play to earn trust with consumers. The company’s website features wine reviews, articles and videos to help build an audience. The content helped yield a 50% increase in monthly email opt-ins.

“We put time into creating helpful content that helps people either make a buying decision or entertain them,” said Erika Strum, Director of Internet Marketing, Wine Enthusiast Companies. “Even if they aren’t making that purchase in the moment, we feel that they will come back to us as a great source of information.”

Do you have something to offer your consumers other than a great product or service? Look to content to form valuable trust and relationships in your market.

Case Study #5. B2B Ecommerce: Redesigned online form increases quotes 67.68%

Lesson:  Your website must align with the way people shop online.

A website is never a finished product – it’s forever evolving. After all, it has to. Think about what would happen if you kept your website the same year after year. You couldn’t do that and be successful. The Internet is constantly changing as is the way customers expect to shop online. Failure to take this into account with the structure of your website has the potential to lead to your company’s downfall.

Take our case study on Company Folders, a company that provides businesses with custom folders. Prior to its marketing efforts, the company’s website was out-of-date and had a quote form that wasn’t conducive to the ease-of-use online shoppers expected.

By redesigning the website and online form, Company Folders experienced a 67.68% increase in total quotes.

The old online form: 

The new online form:

Company Folders CEO Vladimir Gendelman explained to MarketingSherpa how crucial it was for his company’s website to keep in the consumer in mind.

“In order to tackle this, and do all this, we had to think just like a customer would,” Gendelman said. “A redesign is not just like making [the website] look pretty. It is about making it extremely easy for [website] function.”

Case Study #6. Ecommerce: Adding trustmark boosts sales conversion 14%

Lesson: Small changes can lead to big differences.

Optimization doesn’t have to involve some huge website overhaul. Even the seemingly smallest of things can make a huge difference for your company and our case study on Modern Coin Mart certainly demonstrated that.

The self-described “Modern Coin Superstore” added a simple trustmark to its ecommerce site to ease customers’ anxieties about the purchasing process. A tiny graphic produced monumental results, boosting sales conversions to 14%.

What can you as an ecommerce marketer take from this? Don’t think you have to exhaust yourself to yield impressive results – even small changes can lead to big successes.

Case Study #7. Social Media Marketing: How a small ecommerce site attracted 293,000 Facebook fans

Lesson: Social media fosters marketing by the consumer.

What’s on your mind? Facebook gives its users a platform to speak their minds, share their photos and  promote your products. Yes, promote your products.

It may not be what Mark Zuckerberg initially had in mind, but Facebook can offer huge boosts to your company. It’s so simple for a customer to take a photo of your product, which provides your company with a testimonial, review and super sharable content that is free.

Does the product or service you’re selling suit the Facebook realm? In other words, is it sharable? Could it be? This can lead to impressive results. Look at our case study on Diamond Candles, a company that features rings beneath the wax of its candles. By utilizing customer-contributed photos on its Facebook page, Diamond Candles upped conversion rates and attracted more than 290,000 new Facebook fans.

For minimal effort, your ecommerce site has the potential to produce maximum results. Determine how your product can start a conversation in consumers’ social networks and then capitalize on it.

Read more…

Originally published on B2B LeadBlog

When it comes to PPC ads, writing copy with limited headline and description character spaces can be tough.

Copywriting in a confined space can feel more like an art, especially when you consider crafting social media PPC messaging for a highly targeted audience versus search engines ads, in which a keyword strategy impacts your message.

Overall, one thing I’ve seen in my experiences in working with our Research Partners is the basics of copywriting are often a first casualty in PPC ad design. Here are three basic tips for creating ads that you can use to help you communicate effectively with prospects.

Tip #1. Highlight your value proposition

If your value proposition is unclear, you are missing opportunities because prospects are naturally attracted to choices that provide them with the most value.

Your PPC ads should be focused on answering the central question that is at the heart of all your marketing: “If I am your ideal prospect, why should I click on your PPC ad instead of your competitors’?”

Delivering a marketing message that communicates value in less than 100 characters is difficult, but it’s not impossible and absolutely necessary.

Also, here are a few more questions every marketer should ask themselves in regard to value proposition development when crafting PPC ads:

• What problems does our product or service solve for our prospects?
• How will our products or services improve their business?

Tip #2. Prepare prospects for what to expect after they click

It’s important to remember the job of your ad is just to get a click from a prospect. A way to help you do this is by preparing visitors for the action they will be taking once they have clicked on the ad.

Including information about what visitors can use your website for such as “browsing,” “view pricing” and “save favorites” will clue prospects into what they can do on your landing page.

Tip #3. Relevant images matter

A PPC ad is a lot easier to change than a website. As I mentioned in the last tip, your ad needs to effectively communicate what the visitor can expect on the landing page. This idea is all about relevance.

LinkedIn ads specifically let you use images as part of your advertising, which is a boon to your communication efforts given the old adage that a picture is worth 1,000 words.

The screenshot above is from a few ads on my LinkedIn page that are a good example of why using the right image in your ads is important.

Maybe green neckties are somehow relevant to email marketing, but I’m not seeing the connection.

On the other ad, an image of Cornell’s logo and the 12-week certification copy make much more sense to me as a prospect. Granted, the ad also has some room for improvement, but the image and copy work together to set the right expectations.

To learn more, you can watch the free on-demand MarketingExperiments Web clinic replay of “Optimizing PPC Ads.” Also, feel free to share any recommended tips you have for PPC ads in the comments below.

Related Resources:

Social Media: How Motorola Solutions uses Facebook to generate more engagement

B2B Social Media Marketing: DocuSign’s targeted LinkedIn InMail strategy creates 3 large pipeline opportunities

Marketing Research Chart: What is the biggest B2B marketing challenge?

A few weeks ago, I was watching this year’s Country Music Awards (CMAs) with friend of mine and her mother. I was surprised by a few parallels I noticed between the awards show and some of our recommended best practices at MECLABS.

Set goals that encourage awareness

For the CMAs, its goal, according to the mission statement on the website, is to “heighten the awareness of country music and support its ongoing growth by recognizing excellence in the genre.”

Consequently, the CMAs serve as an outlet for recognizing excellence, while providing an entertaining awards show to heighten viewer awareness.

The goals of the CMAs are not explicitly stated at the beginning of the show. This falls in line with a best practice of not stating your goals on your website, but rather, your intended goals should be the conclusion customers reach on your landing page.

To help you accomplish this, you should answer the question: “What do I want the visitor to do on this page?”

Active engagement matters

Another aspect I found interesting about the CMAs was its drive to involve the audience. For example, during each artist’s performance, their Twitter handle was placed at the bottom of the screen.

This encouraged audience participation with their favorite artists.

Yes, it even had a phone app.

Throughout the night, the hosts encouraged viewers to download the Shazam app. Viewers who used the app would receive exclusive access to content and free music downloads.

So, how did this engagement strategy pay off?

Well, according to Country Music Rocks, an online music news source, the strategy was a huge success.

People went directly from Shazam’s CMA experience to iTunes and Amazon approximately 50,000 times during the broadcast to buy the tracks and albums of the nominees, winners and performers – this does not include the two free tracks available for download.

– Country Music Rocks

Here are a few ways you can encourage active engagement on your website.

Leverage social media: Actively post and manage related content on your social media feeds. In addition, encourage your visitors to share, retweet or email this information to their friends.

Try to offer exclusive content: What you can offer will depend on your industry, but providing exclusive content will encourage visitors to come back and interact with your site in the future.

Offer lots of related resources: This can be anything from previous blogs or articles to encourage the visitor to stay on your website for a longer duration.

Ease of use is always appealing

The CMAs did a variety of things to appeal to every element of its audience demographics and made it easy for viewers to participate.

For starters, there were performances from artists both young and old, comedy skits and emotional speeches from award winners.

My point here is that appeal never gets old for your customers, even when delivered in large doses. There’s nothing more appealing I can think of than a landing page that is easy to use.

I recommend taking some time for usability testing, as this can go a long way to make sure the focus of your site remains customer-centric.

  Read more…

Every email marketer has the goal of building a good quality list. In fact, 74% of marketers report year-to-year growth of their email list, according to the MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Handbook, Second Edition. However, having a large amount of people on an email list does not mean it’s a quality list. Keeping email subscribers engaged and active is vital to any email marketing campaign.

In this video excerpt from Email Summit 2013, Diana Primeau, Director, Member Services, CNET, discusses the importance of cutting out disengaged users from your email list and the necessity of sending out a warning email beforehand.

“It’s a lot easier to keep your customers happy and engaged if you’re reaching out to them in a meaningful way, providing them with content throughout the year,” she suggested as a preemptive measure.

But, even if you pack amazing content into every single email send, some users still will go inactive. For the health of your email list and the reputation of your company’s email sends, the inactive users should be removed.

Before you start removing people from your list though, an email should be sent out as a last chance, and with that, “it’s really important that you give your customers a reason to stay with you,” Diana said.

In the last-chance email sent by CNET, the copy contains links to other newsletters that may be more specific to members’ interests, sweepstakes opportunities and a plea to not miss out on its news.

With this campaign, CNET re-engaged almost 9% of its inactive users – users that have not opened an email for more than 180 days – that would have otherwise been cut from the list.

Watch the full presentation to see Diana’s specific examples, case studies and her overarching recommendations for her fellow email marketers.

Read more…

Originally published on B2B LeadBlog

Just when you thought you had this whole deliverability thing down, another challenge rises to the surface.

This time, it’s in the form of Gmail’s tabbed inbox.

Google’s new email feature automatically classifies users’ email messages into categorized tabs, including:

• Primary: friends, family, highly valued messages
• Social: social network updates
• Promotions: deals, offers
• Updates: bills, receipts
• Forums: online groups, discussion boards, mailing lists

The tabs seek to make email a less overwhelming process for users. However, for marketers, it’s provoked the opposite response. Marketers are worried about their messages being ignored if their emails don’t get delivered to the primary inbox.

While Gmail’s tabbed inbox has incited its fair share of panic in the marketing world since its rollout a few months ago, does it prove to be something you should be concerned about as a B2B marketer?

After all, Gmail is typically consumer-focused, presenting these tabs as more of a B2C hurdle.

In the B2B marketplace, you’re dealing with deliverability to in-house email platforms, so this won’t be an issue, right?

Well, not so fast.

Tom Sather, Senior Director of Research, Return Path, explained the idea of a market-specific email platform is fading. Sather referenced research published by Garter that predicted “at least 10% of enterprise email seats will be based on a cloud or software-as-a-service model.”

“I think we’re going to start to see those lines blur between what a B2B domain is versus what a B2C domain is,” Sather said. “There’s always been a clear-cut difference between them [previously].”

But, even if some of the consumers you’re targeting haven’t outsourced their email platforms, it’s still likely that those consumers do have a personal Gmail account.

This, of course, presents another opportunity for you as a B2B marketer. That’s more real estate you can target to get those consumers to convert, Sather said.

Gmail tabs also allow marketers to purchase ad space within the promotions tab – another viable tactic to pounce on. It parallels the concept of your typical display ad.

“You can purchase an ad and it doesn’t matter whether you’re actually sending to Gmail users or not,” Sather explained.

Though Gmail’s tabbed inbox presents such opportunities for marketers, it has still invoked fear through negative media attention in the marketing realm.

Spencer Kollas, Global Director of Delivery Services, Experian Marketing Services, said the tabs tool has already been practiced in the industry for years via Hotmail and Yahoo’s “other inbox” plug-in.

“We’ve been through these types of fire drills in the past in this industry,” Kollas said. “The bottom line is if you are sending relevant information to users that want it, they’re going to find a way to open it and they are going to engage with your brand.”

Studies are disproving the scare tactics, too.

Return Path published “Analysis: Gmail Tabs Don’t Stop Shoppers” pulling data one week after the tabs were publicly introduced, illustrating early on that tabs aren’t a bad development for email marketers.

The report showed that highly engaged users – those consumers who matter most to a marketer – increased their read rate with tabs by 2.11%. The study explained “Gmail’s tab feature made it easier to do something they like doing: shop.”

Based on the above findings and opportunities, Gmail’s tabbed feature could make it easier to do something you like doing, too: attracting consumers.

Related Resources:

Email Marketing: Your Deliverability Questions Answered

B2B Email Marketing: How reputation, content and brand management affect deliverability

Email Deliverability: Getting into Gmail?s ?Priority Inbox?

Developing a strategy to identify the personas of your customers can be daunting.

How specific do you get?

More importantly, how do you make these personas real to your marketing team?

In a recent webinar, Jacob Baldwin, Search Engine Marketing Manager, and Christina Brownlee, Director of Marketing Communications, both of One Call Now, discussed the important role of customer personas in an overall conversion strategy.

They identified four different personas applicable to a wide variety of verticals within their target audience: spontaneous, competitive, humanistic and methodical.

In order to make these characteristics identifiable for the team, each trait was assigned a “Star Trek” character: Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty, aptly called the “Spock Project.” 

The One Call Now team used an outside consultant to brainstorm different buyer personas.

During brainstorming, the team decided to map out all of their markets using these personas, and they discovered some markets shared personas. For example, McCoy, the humanistic customer, was found in both K-12 education and sports management markets.

Assigning customer characteristics to familiar television characters helped the marketing team design webpages and content tailored to each persona.

For example, competitive persona customers are likely more interested in information specific to the bottom line and which product or company offers more than the others.

On the other hand, a humanistic persona is more interested in testimonials and case studies – how the product affects a person after adoption. One Call Now packed each landing page with content that appealed to each of the personas.

In order to appeal to each persona, One Call Now created various types of content and calls-to-action. Although customers all come to the site for the same reason – to purchase a messaging system – the way that various customers decide to buy differs. 

For a spontaneous persona, a shiny green “BUY NOW” button beckons. But, for a customer that needs to do more research, testimonials, case studies and requests for a quote are readily available.

Introducing the marketing team to familiar characters helped them think about “How would I sell to Spock, the competitive, as opposed to Kirk, the spontaneous buyer?”

Testimonials and fancy buttons wouldn’t cut it for a buyer labeled as a Scotty, the methodical buyer, as effectively as strong content, numbers and being able to compare features build a better case.

Content development rapidly took off within the organization in order to appeal to different characters.

By generalizing four basic characteristics across the sub-vertical customers, One Call Now developed a strategy to appeal to decision makers in the way that they make decisions. The team is able to expand and fine-tune the way they approach customers on the Web, in a way that speaks directly to them and addresses their concerns.

To learn more about how creating customer profiles can aid your marketing efforts, you can watch the free on-demand MarketingSherpa webinar replay of “Search Marketing: Insights on keyword research and customer personas.”

  Read more…

This holiday season might be another tough one for retailers. According to The National Retail Federation, sales could rise 3.9% to $602.1 billion. Not great when compared to the 5% gain seen in 2011 and 2010.

This means that competition among retailers just got tougher. For instance, it has been reported that close to 50% of retailers will start their holiday campaign sooner than usual.

So, I decided to browse around 20 top online retailers’ sites and explore whether they had launched any holiday campaign or not. To my surprise, my small sample more or less confirmed the forecast.

Out of the 20 retailers I checked, seven had some sort of holiday campaign going on.

So, how are these seven retailers getting a head start with the holidays? Mainly by using one of these three tactics.

Tactic #1. Sneak peek-terest Black Friday board

Lowes is running an interesting and unique Black Friday campaign using Pinterest. Many items have been added to its new Black Friday Deal Reveal board, but they are disguised.

Followers are asked to guess what the items are, which in turn generates good engagement and excitement for the shopping day.

The nice aspect about this campaign is how it leverages the core value of Pinterest as a social network. People in this channel are interested in collecting pictures with a purpose: their lifestyle, seasonal or tactical. By tactical, I mean that Pinterest is slowly becoming the holiday shopping list of online consumers.

Why keep a list on paper when you can pin the items you like or want for the holidays? Even better, you can share your board with family and friends.

Tactic #2. Email sneak peeks

There’s nothing tactically new here, except the campaigns are rolling out just a little earlier than usual due to the lackluster sales I mentioned earlier.

But, there is something to be learned from these front-runners. 

In these cases, The Home Depot and Target are asking visitors to give up their email address or mobile phone number to receive updates on special offers.

There is no clear value of what customers will receive beyond exclusive offers. Even worse, the disclaimers clearly suggest they will be targeted to receive any type of offer year-round, not just Black Friday offers.

That is disappointing.

Starting holiday campaigns sooner than your competitors is one thing, but putting out a campaign without clear value because it’s too far ahead of the crowd is another.

By launching holiday campaigns sooner, some retailers may feel the illusion of a head start.

But how will that illusion hold up as the Black Friday creep controversy continues to push shopping further into Black Thanksgiving territory?

Tactic #3. Holiday gift guides

This is also not a new tactic, but there are some interesting new spins on it.

Amazon.com, Nordstrom, West Elm and Barnes & Noble are all running holiday gift guides. Visitors can search products by price, gender, interest and other filters. Only Amazon.com and Nordstrom have added some features to generate engagement with their guides.

Amazon.com offers a holiday-specific forum where visitors can solve any type of concern they might have. There were already 316 discussion strings when I was writing this post and the list was growing! To me, this reflects that people are indeed not just thinking about what to buy, but actively researching the best buys.

Nordstrom, on the other hand, is trying to go viral. The company is running a sweepstakes that requires visitors to create their wish list and share it with friends and family in order to be eligible to win a $5,000 gift card. Pretty nice incentive.

  Read more…

Originally published on B2B LeadBlog

It’s hard to believe that this December will mark 10 years since I received my first cell phone as a gift on Christmas morning.

It was a black and white Nokia that I used for three things:

• Phone calls
• The occasional text
• Playing “Snake”

Needless to say, mobile devices have come a long way in 10 short years, with Americans now consuming 12% of their media through mobile phones. While this evolution of mobile devices has widely made accessing the Internet far more convenient for consumers, it has added a whole new challenge for digital marketers.

Although this media consumption is centered on B2C consumers, it’s worth keeping watch for two key reasons:

1. The lines between B2C and B2B are growing more blurry (and debated) as B2I grows in relevance
2. More than half (52%) of B2B marketers consider mobile marketing very important to influence their company growth in the next three years

We all know that mobile users are different. They want to find their valuable information quickly and easily. This is not always an easy task given the small screen size and touch functionality found on most mobile devices, but it is certainly not impossible to provide users with a compelling, user-friendly mobile experience.

In today’s B2B Lead Roundtable Blog, I’m going to share three spend ideas to help you balance value and reduce the overall user friction in your mobile experience.

Spend #1. Make convenience essential

Mobile users are exactly what their name entails. They are typically on-the-go and may not have long periods of time to learn how to navigate a site.

Ensuring that prospects can find the information they want as quickly and easily as possible is essential to ensure users have an enjoyable visit.

This is often difficult as mobile visitors expect a level of value similar to your website in a simplified format. But, there are options available to make your mobile site very convenient.

Utilizing one-touch tools across your mobile site will allow visitors to easily navigate without having to select multiple small calls-to-action.

One-touch CTAs allow the user to perform actions such as calling for assistance, finding a location near them, and adding an item to the cart. These are to ensure that a user can navigate as easily as possible.

Spend #2. Keep the mobile experience simple

As I’ve mentioned, your mobile experience should be convenient and user-friendly, allowing the visitor to easily access the information they are looking for.

Presenting them with a cluttered layout is the quickest way to get a user to bounce from your mobile site. Therefore, keeping it simple is the key to your success. While this may seem fairly intuitive, making this step a reality can be difficult.

Users come to a mobile site expecting it to have the same functionality as the desktop version, but on a screen a fraction of the size. It is extremely important to test your mobile site to determine the information and features that are most important to visitors, eliminating all unnecessary clutter.

While there will always be people in your organization that argue against the removal of certain information and features from a site, maintaining a simple layout is crucial to the success of your mobile site.

Spend #3. Keep the experience congruent across devices

This may be the one of the most difficult steps to accomplish when developing a mobile site, but in terms of continuity, it’s vital.

While your mobile site must be optimized for the mobile user, it should still have a similar feel to your desktop experience.

Let’s use Boeing as an example of what I’m talking about in terms of keeping your aesthetics congruent across multiple devices.

Many mobile visitors will already have a familiarity with your brand and have likely visited your desktop site prior to accessing the mobile version.

So ideally, you want to ensure that the form and function of your mobile site are similar to that of your desktop version.

This will give these users a sense of familiarity with the site, even if it is their first mobile visit.

Even when your mobile site uses a similar structure, many users may still prefer the desktop version of a site. Make sure that you include an easy-to-find link – typically placed in the footer – allowing visitors to switch to the desktop version of your site on their mobile devices.

While creating an engaging mobile experience is not an easy feat to accomplish, it is certainly not impossible given the tools and resources available today.

Hopefully these three ideas will help you strike the right balance between value and friction on your own mobile site.

Also, share any tips you have for helping marketers develop a great mobile experience in the comments below.

Related Resources:

Mobile Marketing: What 4 top B2B companies can teach us about mobile

Lead Generation: Who knows the customer better – Marketing or Sales?

Lead Management: 4 principles to follow

For Jermaine Griggs, Founder, Hear and Play Music, communicating with customers through email was a critical part of his marketing efforts. By embracing behavior-based marketing tactics, Jermaine achieved an increase in customer lifetime value (CLTV) of 416% in 14 months simply by harnessing the power of personalized marketing strategies.

At Email Summit 2013, Jermaine explained how he accomplished these results in his presentation, “How an Online Music Teaching Company Harnessed the Power of Email Automation & Behavior-based Marketing to Increase Conversions.”

In this video excerpt, learn about behavior-based marketing, and how Jermaine applied it to Hear and Play’s CRM system.

“Personalized marketing is about authentically altering the user experience based on data and behavior,” Jermaine explained

In this short clip, watch how Hear and Play captures and uses internal and external data to increase the effectiveness of campaigns. Also, understand how to let what your customers and prospects do dictate what you do in return.

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