Email Marketing Campaign

Email is a powerful and effective marketing tool. It's incredibly affordable and extremely flexible. Used properly, it's unbeatable.

Used badly, it's a recipe for disaster. I see way too many small businesses that jump into it without understanding the most basic ground rules. And they pay the price.

So let's go back to school. Here are seven basic principles that should guide every email marketing campaign.

1. Get permission. This isn't optional. Spamming a customer will turn your business into a pariah. It can also get you sued if you violate the federal CAN-SPAM law. You can manage the permission process yourself, or you can work with reputable marketing partner.

2. Keep it clean. A "clean" list of email addresses will be targeted to your specific industry niche, product offering, or customer segment. The cleaner your list, the higher your response rates - and your ROI - will be.

3. Take your time. Many companies use "drip" email marketing campaigns to build successful, long-term customer relationships. These campaigns deliver value to the recipients (for example, a whitepaper or discount offer) while setting the stage for a series of additional communications.

4. Keep it simple. Some of your customers will respond to rich HTML or graphical email. Some dislike that approach - or they simply filter it out. Meet your customers halfway by allowing them to set their email preferences, or deliver plain-text email with links to rich-text versions.

5. Don't wear out your welcome. If a customer wants off your list, then of course you'll comply. But also consider removing a customer if they simply don't respond to your email over a specific number of messages or period of time. You're more likely to annoy them than you are to win them over with even more email.

6. Remember: Content is king! As I said in a previous post, quality content is the single most effective marketing tool most companies will ever use. Use email to deliver useful, interesting content - not a series of one-off, hard-sell sales pitches.

7. Experiment, experiment, experiment. Email is a wonderful place to try out new types of content, offerings, messages, and other options. This approach can be especially helpful if you're using a marketing automation tool that can capture and manage feedback from your email marketing experiments.

Marketing analytics tools today can produce mountains of data. Whether you're using a free tool like Google Analytics or a full-fledged marketing automation system, it's tempting to assume that quantity equals quality.

It doesn't. In fact, too much data can sink your B2B marketing strategy - and it'll drive you nuts in the process.

Choosing the right metrics for your own digital marketing campaign is a tough balancing act. To some extent, it depends upon your industry, your business model, and your individual marketing goals. But I'll help you get started by introducing some of the key metrics that can deliver useful, cost-effective B2B marketing insights.

For the sake of clarity, let's break these down into two categories: One related to search-engine optimization (SEO) and Web traffic; the other dealing with social media.

Key SEO and Web Metrics

Total organic traffic. By this, I mean traffic to your website from all sources - including search and social media.

Search-engine rankings. This is one of the core elements of any marketing-metrics package.

Popular search phrases. Another vital metric, since it creates a feedback loop for your website keyword-optimization strategy.

Time on-site and bounce rates. Bounce rates tell you, among other things, that people who find your site either don't get what they expect or don't like what they get. Either way, it's vital feedback.

Most popular pages. Bread-and-butter metrics like page views and organic traffic may be more important, but I would argue this one is just as essential.

Social Media Metrics

Subscriber trends. How many people subscribe to your blog, news feed, or other content via RSS or email? These folks are vital to your social marketing strategy, and they're worth their weight in virtual gold.

Conversion ratios. How many visitors to your blog or forum become subscribers?

Followers/fans. Another obvious metric, and one you should take very seriously.

Referral sources. Which social-media sources deliver quality traffic? How do Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, and other sites figure in the mix?

Search-engine traffic. I think this is especially important for blogs, since a growing body of unique content (something you're creating, right?) should drive a corresponding increase in search traffic.

For every metric I mentioned here, there are at least five more I could have discussed. But that's the point: There's almost no end to this process, and it's way too easy to get caught up in the numbers, rather than focusing on what they can tell you.

Start with a small group of metrics, learn how to analyze them, and constantly tweak your website, your content, and your digital marketing campaigns based on the feedback they provide. It's a slow process at first, but it will pay big dividends over time.

I don't have to tell most of you that mobile technology is growing at a staggering rate. But if I did, I would point out that smartphones now make up more than half of all U.S. phone sales.

I would tell you that two thirds of mobile users say they use their phones to find a business to make an in-store purchase.

I would note that nearly half of mobile shoppers have downloaded a retail app.

I would certainly tell you that two thirds of consumers plan to make a purchase via mobile this holiday season.

I would point out that the smartphone market is now larger than the PC market -- an extraordinary milestone.

And I would also remind you that these numbers are just the tip of the iceberg.

10 Ways to Leverage Mobile Marketing

So let's turn to the REALLY important topic here: How will your small business turn the mobile marketing revolution into hard, cold cash?

Here are 10 suggestions that will show you what's possible and what you should be doing to explore the possibilities within your own marketing campaign:

1. Build a mobile-friendly business website. This is no longer an option. If your business is online, it needs to have a mobile-friendly website - period.

2. Consider text-message marketing. Consumers are more than twice as likely to react to a text message as they are to email marketing. Just be sure to work with a reputable provider and avoid spamming.

3. Offer a mobile app. Yes, this can be expensive. But it's also a very effective way to reach customers, drive lead generation, and promote your brand.

4. Appeal to short attention spans. Mobile users are busy, and they're often multi-tasking. Craft your content to reach them with short, highly focused messages.

5. Integrate social marketing. Mobile users love to share information. Give them something to "like" about your content, and turn them into vital allies in your lead generation efforts.

6. Use QR codes. These codes are similar to barcodes; a user can scan them with a mobile device and learn more about your company, products, and services.

7. Extend special offers. Make your mobile users feel special with discounts, reward programs, or other perks designed especially for them.

8. Promote, promote, promote! Whether it's a mobile website or a dedicated app, you need to promote it just as you would any other marketing channel.

9. Respect users' privacy. Location-based services are a powerful marketing tool, but it's also easy to abuse them. Tread carefully and treat your mobile customers with respect.

10. Get ready for mobile commerce! So-called m-commerce systems are still in their infancy, but you need to understand the technology if you want to be ready to exploit it.

This is enough to get you started, but like I said, this is simply the tip of the iceberg. Just remember to integrate all of these techniques into your company's overall digital marketing strategy, look for ways to leverage multiple marketing channels, and ensure that your technology always serves your customers -- and not the other way around.

We all know that software-as-a-service (SaaS) has changed the way small businesses think about B2B marketing. But what's the real advantage driving these businesses to adopt SaaS?

Price is part of the answer. Pay-as-you-go pricing is a huge draw for small businesses that no longer have to worry about hardware costs, software licensing, support and maintenance, or any of the other financial baggage that comes along with on-premises software.

B2B Marketing SaaS: The Real Secret to Its Success

But price isn't the whole answer. In fact, there's an even bigger benefit to using SaaS for digital marketing: It allows small businesses to use applications that only very large enterprises could have used in the past.

SaaS-based demand generation tools are actually a perfect example of this evolutionary process. These online applications include an immense array of B2B marketing-related tools and services. A top-tier vendor in this space, such as Eloqua, Marketo, or Market2Lead, will offer a package that might include:

• Email marketing management;
• Multi-channel integration of Web, email, and live-event marketing;
• The ability to create custom landing pages, website forms, and microsites;
• Tools for creating personalized marketing campaigns;
• Event marketing capabilities;
• Contact database management tools;
• Lead scoring, nurturing, and reporting;
• Social media marketing and tracking capabilities.

I'm just scratching the surface here, and I could name a dozen other companies that offer similar SaaS-based online demand generation products. Some are less expensive than others, and some are more suitable than others for very small businesses versus midsized firms. All of them, however, deliver a package of services that typically cost between a few hundred dollars and a few thousand dollars a month.

A B2B marketing organization might find the same features in on-premises software, but they'll have to add a few zeroes to the cost to get it - and they'll have to pay a good chunk of that right up front.

Picking a SaaS Marketing Solution: 3 Things to Consider

So far, so good. You're sold on the concept of SaaS, and you'd love to adopt a digital marketing solution that gives your room to grow at a fair price. If you're ready to take the plunge, here are three tips for evaluating a solution beyond the obvious stuff, like pricing and support options:

Scope. Just about everybody in this market can support Web and email marketing tasks, and most also play well with third-party CRM and SFA solutions. But what if you want to use the same software to manage an integrated direct mail marketing campaign? How about integrating data from conferences and live events?

There are demand-generation tools that can manage multi-channel B2B marketing campaigns, and some of them do it quite well. Just remember that you'll pay more - perhaps a lot more - to get all of this in a single tidy package.

Scale. Small and midsized businesses don't worry much about how these SaaS-based digital marketing solutions will scale. That's only a problem for the big guys, right?

Actually, you might be surprised how quickly scalability becomes an issue even for smaller companies. That's because smaller companies have smaller marketing teams, and those teams often manage multiple campaigns with lots of moving parts. Select a demand-generation solution that can support Web templates, for example, and it'll be much easier to make changes while protecting your brand with a clean, consistent set of shared assets.

Feedback. Metrics are the modern marketer's secret weapon: They allow you to quantify results and demonstrate ROI in a way that you could never do in the past. That's why it's especially important to look at a vendor's analytics tools. Ask how they track things like website activity, campaign response rates, and cost-based marketing metrics.

Is direct mail marketing dead?

It's a common question these days, and we all know why: Email, search, social media, and other forms of digital marketing are all the rage. They're cheaper than direct mail, they're faster, they deliver better feedback, and they ultimately deliver better ROI.

Right?

Actually, I don't think direct mail is dead yet. It might even be getting its second wind.

Direct Mail Still Gets Results

According to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), 1.4 percent of U.S. households in 2010 responded to direct-mail pitches. That's down a bit from the 2005 numbers, but that number is still more than double a typical email marketing response rate, according to the DMA.

While those numbers don't directly address B2B direct mail marketing, I think it's safe to say they're comparable -- especially in terms of how they compare to email response rates.

We all know why those email response rates are so low. Bulk email is a saturated marketing channel, and the signal-to-noise ratio is unbelievably low, even for sophisticated online lead generation efforts.

Those numbers don't mean direct mail is a slam-dunk for every small business. They simply mean that direct mail can still have a place in your marketing mix - if you know how to identify, target, and build a trust relationship with the right prospects.

4 Ways to Marry Direct Mail and Digital Marketing

So direct mail definitely is not dead. But technology has transformed the way it works. Here are some specific trends you need to follow in order to use direct mail effectively.

1. On-demand printing. Throw away the cookie cutter: It's now possible to create small, highly customized batches of direct mail with content tailored for specific customer segments or for groups at different points in your marketing pipeline. You'll get higher response rates, and you'll get them at a very reasonable cost.

2. Integrated direct mail/digital marketing campaigns. You can use direct mail to drive prospects to custom website landing pages, social media pages, video demonstrations, whitepaper downloads, or any number of other destinations. This type of thoughtful, carefully-crafted content is essential to identifying qualified leads and setting up your sales team for success.

You can also experiment with new options, such as QR codes, to simplify the process of integrating direct mail marketing and digital campaigns.

3. End-to-end personalization. What do you get when you combine on-demand printing with so many different digital marketing choices? You get the opportunity to deliver a completely personalized marketing experience for every prospect. That's an opportunity that you couldn't buy at any price just a few years ago.

4. Analytics. Now more than ever before, the tools exist to measure the responses to your direct mail marketing campaigns. In fact, it's important that you NOT launch a direct mail campaign until you have a plan in place to track and measure your results.

Like I said, this doesn't mean direct mail is always appropriate for your small-business B2B marketing efforts. But it's important to experiment with direct mail, just as you experiment with social media, video, email, and other activities.

So direct mail isn't dead. And if you know how to use it right, it can give a healthy boost to your small business' bottom line.

By John Leavy

Nurturing your prospects will double or triple your conversion rate. Just consider: The average click-through rate for pay-per- click ads is 1 to 3 percent. The average click-through from an e-mail campaign is between 1 and 5 percent depending upon the industry. Most of the people arriving at a website are not ready to buy. These are people that are showing an interest in your product or service but not purchasing or signing up. You can expect to harvest between 3 and 5 percent of those that click-through. If 10,000 people click on your Google ad and 2 percent or 20 people click-through to your offer, only 2 percent, or four people will actually purchase your service or product. Four out of 10,000 is only a .0004 percent conversion rate. To get the conversion rate up, you should entice more of the audience of 10,000 that click through to purchase your product or service. Remember, there is not an unlimited supply of prospects interested in purchasing any product or service.

Lead Nurturing

So how do you entice and persuade more people to click-through and make a purchase? According to Forrester Research, companies that excel at lead nurturing are able to generate 50 percent more sales-ready leads at 33 percent lower cost- per-lead. Lead nurturing is a process by which unqualified leads are tracked and developed into sales-ready opportunities.

The marketing tactics used to turn these unqualified leads into sales-ready opportunities could be webinars, podcasts, whitepapers and other education-based materials, blogging, free trials, newsletters, or e-mail campaigns.

Thought leadership means you have to have something of value to say. Focus implies that each piece of collateral, whether an e-mail, blog post, or news article, needs to be centered around one specific pain point and include the remedy, benefit, and a strong call to action.

The subject line or story header needs to grab the reader’s attention in five to eight seconds. Don’t clutter the e-mail with extraneous links and other offers. Don’t get off subject when writing the blog post or article. Stay on message.

Natural progression means don’t rush the sale. Design an e-mail nurturing campaign or series of blog posts to take the prospect through a logical educational process. The nurturing campaign should be designed to cause prospects to move down the sales funnel at their own pace. The campaign should also be designed to cause the prospect to make a stronger commitment. For instance, at first the prospect gives her e-mail address. Later on during the nurturing campaign the prospect is asked for her company name, phone number, and a few pieces of information that will help qualify her as a potential buyer.

Measurement is the key to any successful inbound marketing campaign. Measurements give you the opportunity to fine-tune the calls to action, the offers, and the content, which in turn increases the click-through and conversion rates.

Keep in mind the difference between spam and nurturing. Spamming is when someone just compiles a list of names and e-mail addresses (who knows from where) and thinks there’s some benefit to jamming his message down the recipient’s throat. Nurturing a list of names means that those people have, in some way, touched the company in the past. Perhaps they took a free trial, signed up to receive a newsletter, or downloaded content (a case study or whitepaper) off the company’s website.

Nurturing campaigns need to be timely and consistent. Run the campaign over weeks, not months.

Running an E-Mail Nurturing Campaign

As an example, say you run a 17-day nurturing campaign while people are using a free trial of your software product. You’ll send out eight e-mails focusing on pain points, remedies, and benefits and how they relate to your product. The 17 days could look like this:

• E-mail 1. Sent out upon subscribing to the free trial. Confirms they have signed up.
  
• E-mail 2. Sent out on Day 1. Welcomes them to the free trial process.
  
• E-mail 3. Sent out on Day 3. Focus on a pain point/the remedy/the benefit.
  
• E-mail 4. Sent out on Day 7. Focus on a pain point/the remedy/the benefit.
  
• E-mail 5. Sent out on Day 11. Focus on a pain point/the remedy/the benefit.
  
• E-mail 6. Sent out on Day 13. Focus on a pain point/the remedy/the benefit.
  
• E-mail 7. Sent out on Day 15. Lets people know their free trial is expiring.
  
• E-mail 8. Sent out on Day 17. Tells people about a special offer if they decide to purchase the product.
  

In this instance, you write your blog posts ahead of time and schedule the posts to be published as your nurturing campaign unfolds. The posts concentrate on pain points, remedies, and benefits. This nurturing campaign runs for 20 days. People that have subscribed to your RSS Feed will automatically be notified each time a new post is published. A campaign might be:

• Day 1. You write a post that gives prospects the 10,000-foot view of your online service.
  
• Day 5. You write a post about a pain point, remedy, and benefit.
  
• Day 9. You write a post about a pain point, remedy, and benefit.
  
• Day 12. You write a post about a pain point, remedy, and benefit.
  
• Day 17. You write a post about a pain point, remedy, and benefit.
  
• Day 20. You sweeten the pot by offering the first month of service free to those that sign up within the next 24 hours.
  

It’s easy to see now that nurturing takes time, patience, and consistency. The returns will be greater than starting over with a new batch of prospects. Remember to treat these prospects as perhaps interested but not ready to make a purchasing decision.

John D. Leavy is the founder of InPlainSite Marketing, a leader in developing and delivering digital marketing strategies. John consults and presents to Fortune 100 and 500 companies. He is the author of Outcome-Based Marketing: New Rules for Marketing on the Web and a regular contributor to leading publications and nationally known speaker.

By Mike Capuzzi

If you’ve ever stared at a blank computer screen or sheet of paper when you sat down to write a marketing piece, you know how challenging it can be to get started.

Starting a marketing campaign from scratch each and every time is tedious and not a great way to leverage time and creativity, which is why most successful marketers build and maintain a marketing swipe file.

Personally, I have several large boxes in my office where I keep my print swipe files and my marketing radar is always on – looking for new things to add – which might help me in the future (just yesterday I received a cool piece of mail from a credit card company and it’s an idea I’m definitely going to swipe for my marketing).

I also maintain a set of folders on my computer hard drive where I collect and store online marketing examples, like emails and web pages.

I use these swipe files to generate ideas and spark creativity. Sometimes I use the materials for to get ideas for my copy writing, but regardless of what I need to accomplish, by simply maintaining a healthy swipe file of both print and web materials, I can beat the blank page blues.

If you haven’t been keeping a swipe file, here are several ideas to help you get them started.

Offline Marketing (print) – study the mail you’re receiving each day and be on the lookout for unique and creative ideas that grabbed your attention. Read magazines and newspapers and pay attention to the advertisements. Again, you’re looking for examples that catch your attention. Pay particular attention to headlines and eye-catching ads.

Recently I took home several ads, from the SkyMall catalog that you find on every airline flight, because the headlines were so good.

When you attend tradeshows or marketing events, don’t just walk through the vendor area – look for marketing ideas you can use in your business.

Online Marketing (web) – watch for email headlines and emails that grab your attention. Either print them off or store them in a folder on your computer. I like to use SnagIt from TechSmith to capture web sites, opt-in pages and sales letters. SnagIt take a picture of the entire site – no matter how long it is – and I use it many times throughout the day to build my digital swipe file.

The bottom line is to ALWAYS HAVE YOUR MARKETING RADAR SET TO ON!

Finally, one last point I feel it’s important to make – swipe files should be used for inspiration and to spark creative ideas. I do not recommend simply copying large chunks of a sales letter or squeeze page and using them verbatim in your own business.

Mike Capuzzi is a marketing strategist, author and speaker. Since 1998, he has been helping entrepreneurs and business owners improve their marketing and response rates. He’s the inventor of CopyDoodles, software for adding handwritten notes and hand-drawn doodles to your marketing for increased readability and response. Visit MikeCapuzzi.com for more information.

By Holt Hackney

A little more than a decade ago, Austin marketer Laura Patterson began noticing a growing dissatisfaction between chief executives and their marketing heads regarding the overall effectiveness of marketing.

Soon thereafter, solutions were developed to try to resolve the chasm.

“The problem,” said Patterson, the president and co-founder of VisionEdge Marketing (www.visionedgemarketing.com), “is that the tools were too focused specific aspects of marketing, such as how effective an e-mail campaign was, or whether search engine optimization was drawing people to the site.

“The chief executive responded with: ‘Well this is interesting, but how does it help me understand how marketing moves the needle? Show me the direct line of sight between marketing activities and business outcomes.’ In essence, they wanted to know how to evaluate the overall effectiveness of marketing.”

Patterson saw an opportunity and the annual Marketing Performance Management and Measurement (MPM) Survey was born. She has been tracking this critical marketing issue ever since. Earlier this month, she released the findings of the 10^th annual survey, which includes responses from over 450 international business executives and marketing professionals. The most important finding: Tight alignment of marketing activities and business outcomes separates the best-in-class marketers from all the rest.  In fact, it is the number one key predictor in how the CSuite will assess its marketing organization in terms of its ability to impact the business.   

Other key findings of the MPM survey were: 

• 23 percent of marketers received an “A” from the C-Suite, a relatively consistent number for the past decade.
  
• Nearly 62 percent of the A grade marketers make MPM a priority compared to only 47 percent of other marketers.
  
• More than 50 percent of respondents indicated that they are marginally effective or ineffective at measuring marketing performance. 
  

• They make performance measurement a priority.
  
• They seek out tools.
  
• They develop a MPM approach.
  
• They embrace measurement skills and training.
  
• They use metrics and a dashboard to demonstrate accountability.
  

“There are no more excuses,” she said. “For the past decade, we have strongly believed that clear links and metrics between marketing activities and programs with business outcomes was a critical piece of the puzzle when it comes to the C-Suite perception of marketing’s ability to impact the business. The findings from this survey clearly show that marketers who develop or strengthen their alignment and accountability capabilities are on the right path to achieve marketing excellence.”

By Kathryn Mackenzie, Editor, Hoover’s, Inc.

If you haven’t heard of Groupon, chances are you don’t spend much time on the internet (or watching Super Bowl commercials). Group buying sites such as Groupon, Living Social, and Twongo, are all the rage right now among consumers looking for a bargain. For the purposes of this article, I’ll use Groupon as my primary example simply because it’s the largest and most well-known, but similar sites are popping up left and right hoping to cash in on this booming market.

While we hear a lot about how consumers are saving money left and right, Groupon also represents a new, relatively untapped marketing opportunity for small business owners who see Groupon as a fantastic way to rope in new customers. Which has been proven to be true, but it can also be a nightmare for small business owners who haven’t done their homework.

First, let’s look at some of the benefits of using Groupon. It is an incredibly effective way of getting a large number of customers through your door, and not just any customers, but customers who fit your target market. Second, there’s no upfront cost to use Groupon, and the total cost per customer is generally lower than other forms of advertising such as radio spots, billboard, and direct marketing campaigns (without the added time and money you would otherwise spend on market research).

On the other hand, when Groupon says they will bring you customers, don’t underestimate them. Stories are popping up every day of small businesses being completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of people who come pouring through their doors during the Groupon campaign. Additionally, group purchasing websites are attractive to consumers because of the deep discounts they offer (Groupon advertises discounts of 50 percent to 90 percent), and many of the same businesses that report being overwhelmed by new customers also report losing thousands of dollars to coupon users who don’t purchase anything beyond the discount.

So how do you know if group purchasing is a good marketing tool for you? There are a few simple tips that can help keep you and your business from ending up overwhelmed and underpaid.

Before you sign up ask yourself if your business can actually benefit from this type of advertising. The longer Groupon is around, the clearer it becomes that the businesses that seem to benefit the most from using the group purchasing model are those that offer services rather than goods. Why? Simply put, it’s harder to run out of a service and you’re not losing the cost of reselling items you’ve already purchased. If you are a tiny, three-employee cupcake shop, and you’ve already busted your budget on the ingredients to create your beautiful cupcakes, and you then sell those cupcakes for up to 90 percent off their purchase price…  you see where I’m going with this. On the other hand, if you own a fitness facility and have been looking for inexpensive ways to boost personal training sales, Groupon could be a great marketing tool, provided you’ve got some extra trainers on hand.

If you decide Groupon is right for your business, do your homework. While Groupon has a sales team in place to guide you through their process, it’s just that, their process. They don’t know the ins and outs of your business, and the best way to make sure your experience with Groupon is a good one is to customize your agreement with them.

One component that is particularly important to those business owners who have used Groupon is to make sure to place a cap on sales by limiting the number of discounts available. Placing limits on the number of times a Groupon can be passed around is a good way to keep your business from being overrun by hordes coupon users. By spending the time to customize your group purchasing agreement, you can make sure you’re covering overhead costs while still drawing in new customers.

Finally, negotiate, negotiate, negotiate. They don’t advertise it but Groupon and its competitors don’t always have set commission rates. In one case a sales person told a small business owner that Groupon would keep 100 percent of the sales the company made during the Groupon campaign. When she balked, he negotiated down to a 50/50 split. While 50/50 seems to be the lowest they’re willing to go, you certainly don’t want to be the business that settles for less by not asking for a better split. If they ask for 60/40, tell them you want the 50/50.

Competition among these websites has become fierce, and in response to that and a few well-publicized horror stories from small business owners, Groupon launched a new website to help business owners navigate the Groupon waters. Through GrouponWorks.com business owners can calculate how many vouchers they should offer based on their capacity, receive specialized industry data, and get advice about how to turn a Groupon customer into customers of your very own.

A recent study of 150 businesses that ran and completed Groupon promotions between June 2009 and August 2010, found that the promotion was profitable for 66 percent of participants and unprofitable for 32 percent. My guess is that those 66 percent that made it work spent some time doing their Groupon homework before they launched their campaigns.

Oh, and by the way, if you were wondering if there are similar group purchasing websites for businesses, there are, but they haven’t caught on quite like their consumer-directed brethren.

At GroupPrice companies can sign up to receive a free email from the website that will show them deals customized for their city. Discounts range from 30 percent to 60 percent and are for such items and services as information technology services, software applications, legal services, and marketing tools. Just like with Groupon, GroupPrice users are encouraged to spread the word via social media websites to entice their associates to get in on the deal.

For small business owners in the UK, Huddlebuy offers discounts on tech goods, software, telecom services, office space, legal services, and accounting. Deals are available for a limited time and there are limited quantities of each service or item offered. What’s different about Huddlebuy is that buyers have the opportunity to get in on deals they missed by requesting that the website contact the supplier on their behalf. Users can also request a deal and Huddlebuy will attempt to get it on their site.

By Dennis Dayman

For anyone who ever thought international borders don’t exist on the Internet – think again. Current privacy legislation in the EU is causing quite a stir and carries the potential to influence marketing activities worldwide. The e-Privacy Directive, which mandates that companies acquire “explicit consent” for the use of tracking cookies, is slated to take effect in late May, and a “right to be forgotten” bill, in terms of online activities, is well on its way to following suit. So what does this mean for marketers as well as consumers?

The EU’s e-Privacy Directive should be nothing new to marketers. It simply emphasizes practices and principles marketers should have been following since the beginning – clarity and transparency. The value of tracking cookies is obvious for marketers. Cookies allow data to be collected on a consumer’s behavior and then marketers use this data to appeal to that person’s particular interests. There’s no reason, however,why this process should happen in the shadows. In the US, most companies already provide ways to opt-in for more targeted information at all stages in the user experience, as well as offering easy ways to opt-out at any time. Simple formatting changes including opt-in boxes, and clear disclosure statements will likely be enough to appease the directive’s requirements that users be fully aware of the information being collected through cookies and how that data impacts the content they receive.

For consumers, however, the directive may result in more noticeable changes. As the use of tracking cookies will fall under tighter regulations, some organizations will still try to skirt the rules and find alternative ways to acquire consumer information. The new law, for example, doesn’t address the use of data collected through web browsers, which can be completely accessible depending on a user’s browser settings. As a result, Internet users will have to be much more mindful of their overall security settings. Consumers may also see longer, more complex privacy and security check lists which bury disclosures and permission options in fine print. 

The “right to be forgotten” bill – though only in its infancy – poses a much greater impact on global marketers. Fundamentally, the act intends to ensure a user’s data stored on social networking sites, like Facebook, can be completely erased should the user wish to terminate his or her account. The hitch is that the bill will hold companies like Facebook – despite being based in the US – accountable for any privacy abuses for users in the EU. On a broader scale, this means that not only will organizations need consent to collect user data, but they will also have the capacity to completely clear that data at any time at the user’s request. Furthermore, the bill aims to shift the requirements for privacy compliance from the location of the organization, to the location of its customers.

Nevertheless, for consumer privacy, the bill would be a major step forward. The “right to be forgotten” would empower users in the EU to hold any company, website, online service, or other entity – regardless of where it’s headquartered – accountable for any unwanted use or withholding of personal data. Instead of solely government-enforced sanctions, users themselves will also have the capacity to sue offending parties.

Marketers need to be aware of these upcoming privacy and security laws as they may have a critical affect on global campaigns. Companies conducting business online must know the privacy laws and regulations for the nations in which they operate – there will be grave consequences for those who do not obey these laws.

Dennis Dayman has more than 17 years of experience combating spam, security issues, and improving email delivery through industry policy, ISP relations and technical solutions. As Chief Privacy Officer at Eloqua (www.eloqua.com), Dayman leverages his experience and industry connections to help the company's customers maximize their delivery rates and compliance. Previously, Dayman worked for StrongMail Systems as Director of Deliverability, Privacy, and Standards, served in the Internet Security and Legal compliance division for Verizon Online, as a senior consultant at Mail Abuse Prevention Systems (MAPS), and started his career as Director of Policy and Legal External Affairs for Southwestern Bell Global, now AT&T.

Photo by planetaryvisions

By Brian Kardon

RPM focuses on a company’s interactions with buyers throughout the purchase process to achieve more predictable, rapid and profitable revenue growth. In other words, it offers one view of the truth so that the management team knows exactly where to invest in order to be successful. 

The 3 Steps to RPM:

1)      Change the way businesses think about revenue

Adopting RPM involves a shift in thinking for the marketing department. The vast majority of marketers are focused on more tactical issues such as email click-through or open rates. While tactics are important, marketing needs to change the way they approach their role. This shift is about improving the organizational perception of what marketing does and measuring and demonstrating lead generation that benefits the whole company. Lead generation can’t be divorced from revenue – revenue is the end goal.

2)      Change organizational processes

Businesses need to formalize processes for the sales and marketing team. When marketing and sales are aligned and can agree on a common process, RPM is attainable. Marketing and sales need to come together and create processes – everything from defining lead stages and lead quality to developing a nurture process and hand-off rules. There is a shared responsibility for creating pipeline and ensuring that marketing and sales have a common view of the funnel along with a shared language.

3)      Implement the right technology

Marketing and sales use very different systems. A big step toward RPM is to integrate these separate systems and ensure a smooth lead management process. This also involves providing the necessary data marketing needs in order to successfully score, nurture and route leads as well as the necessary data sales needs to understand buyer behavior.

Why RPM makes sense now?

The evolution of the internet puts businesses in a position to better track the digital body language of buyers and know exactly what they are interested in and what they are doing online. Businesses can measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and then link these measurements to sales effectiveness. While CRM and marketing automation systems previously worked tirelessly as siloed solutions to improve marketing performance, the digital revolution has reached a point where metrics can be tracked together under one umbrella.

The Conference Board recently reported that the top challenge for CEOs is “sustained and steady top-line growth.” RPM aims to shine a light on the true drivers and impediments to revenue growth. It allows the senior sales and marketing professionals to use the same numbers and the same metrics to prove their case identifying the best ways to meet the CEO’s goals for growth and the company’s desire for extraordinary performance.

Kardon is the Chief Marketing Officer at Eloqua.

Photo by aktivioslo

Contributed by Bill Newton

What follows is an example of how such a plan was executed for a Fortune 1000 IT services provider.

 THE CLIENT

The company has $1.8 billion in revenue and 16 thousand associates. It is based  in Texas, and has operations in India and several countries in Europe. The company made Forbes magazine’s “Platinum 400 Best Big Companies” list, and its stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

THE CHALLENGE

The company provides IT services to several industries, such as healthcare, government, and the general commercial market, including homebuilding. The company had only two clients and very little brand recognition in the construction industry but wanted to pursue a promotional strategy to increase revenue in that market. However, C-level executives are particularly difficult to reach and impress in the homebuilding field, as they are constantly bombarded by marketing and sales messages from suppliers and subcontractors.

THE SOLUTION

Boxtopia collaborated with the company to develop a unique concept for a dimensional mail program focused on the homebuilding industry. A series of four historical watercolor paintings were commissioned by the company. Over a three month period, limited edition, framed prints of those watercolors were mailed in high-quality branded packaging to a targeted list of 47 C-level executives at the largest 18 homebuilders in the United States. Each print conveyed a theme—building the foundation, managing the suppliers, using the right tools, and satisfying the customer—that addressed specific pain points experienced by executives in the homebuilding industry in the late 19th century and still persist today. A brief letter accompanying each print explained how the company helps its clients alleviate that pain with effective IT tools and strategies.

 THE RESULTS

This innovative, efficient campaign made it past the executives’ gatekeepers, broke through the clutter, and produced measurable results for the company in a number of areas:

• Created strong brand awareness for the company among top-level homebuilding executives since a series of framed prints ended up hanging on the walls in the recipients’ offices and reception areas

• Opened several doors with targeted executives whom the company was previously unable to reach

• Inspired positive reactions from most of the executives who received the prints (including one executive who sent a personal thank you message to the company)

• Motivated a prominent national homebuilder to submit an RFP to the company, featuring a request for a significant IT consulting proposal

• Enabled the company to initiate and close a $7.5 million, multi-year IT contract with a large homebuilding supply firm

Bill Newton is the principal at B|NEWTON ASSOCIATES, an Austin, Texas-based marketing services provider that focuses on lead generation and sales promotion. He can be reached at bnewton@bnewtonassociates.com.

Our picks for the best B2B articles of the week…

Six Keys to Being Excellent at Anything by Tony Schwartz (Harvard Business Review Blog) Discover the empowerment of “deliberate practice.”

Social CRM for SMBs: A Customer-centric Approach is Critical by Arash Asli (CMSWire) Think you’re customer-focused because you have a CRM system? Not so fast…Make sure you’ve hit these milestones on your CRM journey.

The Mad Men Guide to Changing the World with Words by Jonathon Morrow (Copyblogger) Not all blogs with "Mad Men"-inspired themes are created equal. This one does it right. A must–read for writers and bloggers.

What's Driving the Content Marketing Revolution? by Pawan Deshpande A must-read for B2B marketers! Includes best practices for online content development.

What Really Matters in B2B Selling by Steven Woods (Harvard Business Review Blog) Are you misplacing your sales focus? Surprising research…

How to Determine the Value of Email by Chris Marriott (iMedia Connection) Buried in email campaign requests? Here’s how to say “no” persuasively: state your case with numbers.

Strategies for finding new customers

Unfortunately, the half-day I spent getting those “free” leads, building a campaign around them and promoting exactly zero qualified customers to sales will be a half day I will never recover.

Purchasing leads

There are many different strategies for purchasing leads – and you can pretty much count on getting what you pay for.  List Brokers are a starting source for acquiring leads.  A list broker may in fact also be a list owner – selling a fixed set of data over and over again.  Or a list broker may act as a middleman between list owners and your needs.  This market place is wide open and filled with all levels of credibility.  Google “email list brokers” and you will find over 7000 different websites that will sell you email contacts.

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) is a great resource for learning the ins and outs of dealing with list brokers.  You can find out more here.

Other services offer a more refined and targeted strategy for researching and purchasing leads online.

Jigsaw, recently acquired by Salesforce.com, makes it easy to search a company and find contact info for specific job titles.  Searching is free, but getting contact info will cost you.  However, if you share leads into their system, you can earn credits to use on lead retrieval.

Even more advanced capabilities are available with services like Hoover’s Build-a-list.  Here you can specify many different parameters and filter across more than 150 million contacts at 68 million companies.

Did you know there are 3 people with the title of Marketing Manager working at construction companies in Des Moines, IA.  Nancy C. at The Weitz Company, I might have something interesting for you :-)

Sponsoring events

When you pass by a booth on the show floor that has someone sitting in the back – maybe surfing on her phone – you tend to read the placard and move on.  Opportunity lost!  The best booths have a schedule of responsibilities and a goal on lead collection.  They come prepared with short qualification surveys and offer some sort of raffle or premium to attendees in return for their contact info.

I’ve worked trade shows where our booth collected 300 leads and the booth next to us only collected 30.  The value is definitely in the hustle.

Social Graph

At my company, we have a marketing employee who is responsible for our social media.  He spends part of his day tweeting about interesting happenings in our industry and in responding to other tweets about our industry or company.  He has personally been responsible for steering numerous prospects to our products, just by starting an online dialog with them.

He also manages and curates our Facebook page and our Linked-In group.  Both of these are also good producers of leads.

We regularly drive members of our community toward education sessions – Webinars – and can successfully convert them into the pipeline from there.  Leveraging social graph tools takes intelligence, persistence and the right person to own it.  But it is becoming one of the most cost effective strategies we have in our arsenal for finding new customers.