B2B Marketing ROI

It takes a lot of work to get a prospect to your website. You probably put hours of effort in to crafting a compelling white paper or creating a fancy flash demo to lure visitors in to filling out your form. So once you’ve got them there, don’t let go! Urge them along by offering other items that may interest your target audience. This can be additional white papers, a special offer or a link to a free trial.

Guiding prospects to valuable items that require the visitor to complete another form allows you to use conditional fields, meaning you can collect a new round of prospect data points the second time, third or even fourth time around. This progressive profiling helps to build a more well-rounded customer profile for your sales team.

Even if you don’t have a large library of “locked-down” content to offer your prospects, providing links to other sections of your website can help you continue tracking your visitors and gain additional insight in to their level of interest. Additionally, providing links in the email you send your prospects upon form completion provides another opportunity to reengage those who have already left your site.

It all boils down to this: there is no reason to have your “thank you message” consist of nothing but a thank you. Encourage your prospects to continue the interaction by offering up additional opportunities for them to explore your company. If you are truly providing valuable content, it can only lead to a positive exchange of information for everyone involved.

Over at DMNews this week, Mark Stebbin of MarketMotive wrote a piece on A/B Testing for online marketing campaigns. Though the example used is a B2C campaign,  B2B marketers can benefit from the same concepts.

Marketing automation tools can be used to create multiple campaigns - changing out key elements such as graphics, subject lines or special offers - and then compare ROI results. Viewing click-through and conversion rates for the campaigns  will help you understand what strategies appeal to your target audience and lead to increased success in your future campaigns.

Automation software can also offer multivariate testing for your landing pages to compare conversion rates from you PPC campaigns. Just as you can determine which emails are most attractive to your prospects, you can analyze conversion rates and choose the landing pages that yield the highest ROI.

Creating two versions of a campaign may require a little extra legwork, but think of it as an investment that will save you time and increase future profits with just a few clicks.

There’s been a lot of talk lately on how social networking websites have become a popular way for B2C companies to engage their consumers while gathering feedback on their products. As B2C companies start to jump on this bandwagon, marketers question the validity of social networking in the B2B context. Undeniably, word of mouth is a powerful marketing tactic: a recent study by market research firm Keller Faye Group concluded that it was the leading influencer of business purchase decisions. Which leads us to ask how social networking websites can be used to facilitate two-way dialog in such a way that replicates word of mouth on a grander scale.

An argument against the use of social networking in B2B is that this business model does not allow for the same kind of “buzz” around a brand as in the B2C model, which can leverage the power of viral campaigns. For these to work, the initiative must excite passion on a wide scale - a prerequisite that is not consistent with a B2B product. It is safe to say that YouTube videos, dancing elves and other character personalization games would not be a fit with the B2B model. However, to say that social networking would not benefit these companies would be neglecting the opportunities that exist when you facilitate a dialogue among your customers. Granted, the conversation will take place among fewer individuals, whose similarities will lie not in their personal passions but in their business tasks. It’s the same idea, though: through a web-based dialog customers are simultaneously interacting with your brand while providing a large-scale, low-cost online focus group.

The question becomes where and how to create a platform for this conversation. This post from Barry Hannigan’s blog gives examples of how larger technology companies have implemented social media into their corporate websites, facilitating knowledge exchange through an internal platform. By contrast, other B2B firms place content on websites geared towards social networking, such as ITtoolbox Community Hub, where IT professionals can discuss different vendors through blog posts, topic-based groups and online forums. Should you decide that an external approach would be more appropriate for your company, Rob Murray’s article on SearchEngineLand.com gives guidelines for participating in social networking sites.

Whether your company decides to facilitate a dialog internally through your own website or through an external social network - the key is to leverage the ability of this new technology to generate user feedback. Never before have such large scale consumer research opportunities been available at such a low cost, and B2B firms should latch onto this trend while it still represents a competitive advantage, rather than a necessity for their company’s survival. Even though social networking will never mean the same thing as it does for B2C companies and we’ll never hear of Cisco-Ize Me, there are still great opportunities to improve your company by learning what it is your customers are talking about.

Part of responsible email marketing is ensuring that you’re always in compliance with CAN-SPAM laws. Earlier this week, the FTC made some changes to the CAN-SPAM requirements.

The new rule provisions address four topics:

• An e-mail recipient cannot be required to pay a fee, provide information other than his or her e-mail address and opt-out preferences, or take any steps other than sending a reply e-mail message or visiting a single Internet Web page to opt out of receiving future e-mail from a sender
• The definition of “sender” was modified to make it easier to determine which of multiple parties advertising in a single e-mail message is responsible for complying with the Act’s opt-out requirements
• A “sender” of commercial e-mail can include an accurately-registered post office box or private mailbox established under United States Postal Service regulations to satisfy the Act’s requirement that a commercial e-mail display a “valid physical postal address”
• A definition of the term “person” was added to clarify that CAN-SPAM’s obligations are not limited to natural persons
  

Michael Goldberg posted a great summary of what these changes mean for marketers on the Outperformance Marketing blog.

Based on the new modificaitons, Goldberg explains:

In a multiple-advertiser email, a single advertiser can assume the role of sole “CAN-SPAM sender.” The Final Rule issued by the Federal Trade Commission establishes that, when there are multiple advertisers in single email, a single advertiser can assume the role of sole CAN-SPAM sender if (a) the advertiser meets the requirements of “sender,” as defined under the CAN-SPAM act of 2003, (b) is the only advertiser identified in the “from” line, and (c) complies with all of the other original sender requirements imposed by the Act, including the requirements surrounding a “valid physical postal address.”

Senders must provide recipients with an easy, unburdened way to unsubscribe from a commercial email. Specifically, the Federal Trade Commission requires advertisers to allow consumers to opt out of subsequent commercial email messages from that advertiser without requiring payment, information beyond the consumer’s email address, “or any other obligation as a condition for accepting or honoring a recipient’s opt-out request,” including requiring a consumer to visit more than a single Internet Web page.

“Person” will be defined, for purposes of CAN-SPAM, as an individual, group, unincorporated association, limited or general partnership, corporation, or other business entity.

A “valid physical postal address” has been defined as “the sender’s current street address, a Post Office box the sender has accurately registered with the United States Postal Service, or a private mailbox the sender has accurately registered with a commercial mail receiving agency that is established pursuant to United States Postal Service regulations.”

What didn’t change?

You still have only ten-business days to honor all opt-out requests.

Jeremy Saibil of Campaigner wrote an interesting piece on deliverablility for DMNews this week.

Saibil refers to the JupiterResearch E-mail Marketing Buyer’s Guide, 2008, which says 70% of respondents cited e-mail deliverability services as their top consideration when selecting an e-mail services provider. Obviously, this is a top priority for marketers. In Saibil’s mind, the problem arises when all the responsibility is placed on the email tool, when in fact, marketers themselves have a lot of influence over whether or not their emails make it to the inbox.

The article offers helpful tips on testing campaigns for optimum deliverability, including:

• Have your IT folks set up a pristine, never-before-used e-mail box. Take this new address and subscribe to all of your own marketing programs
• Audit your co-branded and affiliate marketing campaigns for relevance
• Evaluate the content with the images blocked and see if the campaign still makes sense
• Try replying, clicking and ultimately unsubscribing to see how user-friendly your campaigns are

By taking these steps, you will begin to see your campaigns through the eyes of the customer and ensure that your emails aren’t something that is going to be viewed as spam.

Saibil’s ultimate test:

The litmus test that you’re on the right track is when you’re brave enough to add your mother to your e-mail list and you’re confident that she won’t hit the “Report as spam” button.

Less than a week after Salesforce.com announced it’s partnership with GoogleApps, increasing the offerings of it’s on-demand CRM suite, Microsoft announced Dynamics CRM Online, a full marketing, sales and service suite on an Internet-based model.

“At Microsoft, we’re revolutionizing how companies deploy marketing, sales and service solutions to users within their organization,” said Brad Wilson, general manager of Microsoft Dynamics CRM at Microsoft. “Microsoft Dynamics CRM delivers the power of choice to customers, with a familiar and productive user experience and a multitenant platform that enables fast on-premise implementations or ‘instant-on’ deployments over the Internet.”

Targeted toward small-to-mid-sized businesses, Dynamic CRM Online integrates with Microsoft Office and boasts a $59 per user per month price point, slightly lower than Salesforce.com. Focused on creating a flexible and affordable tool, Dynamics CRM has performed well with 500 participants in the Microsoft Early Access Program, offering more storage capacity and configurable entities than Salesforce.com, as well as incorporating workflows.

Learn more about Dynamics CRM Online here.

This week, CRM giant Salesforce.com announced a partnership with Google Apps.

The convenient new platform allows communication through popular Google tools Gmail and Google Talk. Sales teams will also have access to applications such as Google Docs and shared calendars. The partnership aims to create an efficient way to manage schedules and maintain up-to-date versions of documents and sales tools.

This partnership embodies the trend of technology moving away from installation-based softwares, as two of the largest advocates of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) join forces.

“Salesforce.com is thrilled to be offering Google Apps integrated with our Salesforce applications and Force.com Platform-as-a-Service to the millions of businesses looking to manage their entire office in the cloud,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com. “The combination of our leading CRM applications and Google’s business productivity applications pushes forward the transformation of the industry to cloud computing. The end of software is here.”

This month, DMNews is featuring In perfect harmony: e-mail works in-sync with other channels, a piece about integrated, multichannel marketing campaigns. The article, quoting a JupiterResearch study on combining e-mail marketing with other advertising outlets, focuses on the increased results marketers have seen by creating consistent messaging across many medias. An emphasis is placed on building a brand within a campaign as well as testing elements of the marketing program.

Using an effective web marketing suite can help you easily create, test and measure many aspects of an online marketing campaign by:

Presenting a Consistent Brand
Providing uniform email templates will ensure that you’re putting your best brand forward with every piece of correspondence. In addition to making sure you have the last word on all consumer interaction, the sales team will appreciate the templates because saves them time. This way, you can reign your more “creative” sales staff, let them think it’s all to benefit them and still get clean, concise communications. Plus, using templates gives you the option to create HTML emails that will tie-in with your other campaign initiatives.

Integrating Paid Search Campaigns
With emerging technology, you can go way beyond simple cost per click and cost per conversion. New programs are available that can calculate cost per vetted prospect, cost per opportunity, cost per sale, and marketing ROI by tying your paid search costs to yourCRM opportunity data. This will show you what’s working and where to cut the fat - letting you improve your campaigns and boost the bottom line.

Testing Landing Pages and Emails
If you use programs that provide the right metrics, it can be easy to test the effectiveness of your customer-facing communications. Landing pages can be tested using multivariate testing. This works in conjunction with paid search campaigns, automatically directing traffic to multiple landing page locations. By monitoring traffic to different the sites, you’ll be able to see which page has a better conversion rate, helping to determine the stronger campaign tactics. The same theory applies to emails - try out different subject lines, times of day and days of the week to see which combinations most successfully attract opens and click-throughs from prospects.

More and more, marketers are beginning to embrace quality over quantity and putting in place steps to help the sales team improve their odds of closing the deal. Brian Carroll sheds some light on the issue of cost-per-lead vs. cost-per-opportunity in his post, Why Cost-Per-Lead Budgets Fail and Fewer Leads Are Better. Though it can be hard to accept such a claim - why would any one want fewer leads, isn’t it a pure number game? - Carroll says, “The truth is that sales people care very little about the cost of the leads we generate. What they really care about is how many of those leads will actually become viable sales opportunities.”

For a small sales team, the information being passed in to the CRM system can be overwhelming, making it difficult to efficiently sort through the “noise” and determine which leads to focus on. It’s easy to dedicate too much time to unqualified leads and unknowingly passing by valuable opportunities. One step marketers are taking to improve lead quality is developing a system to triage leads and evaluate them for “sales-readiness.” Instead of dumping huge numbers of leads in to a CRM system, marketers are using this lead qualifying system and keeping the junk out of the sales team’s hands. Management and web automation systems can serve as a great “holding pen” for leads before they are passed in to the CRM, allowing the marketing team to review prospects, assign a grade or score and pass the record to the appropriate sales rep.

If marketers can begin to live by the rule of quality over quantity, they will see a great improvement in their conversion and greatly increase their percentage of qualified opportunities. Not to mention, they will get a big “thank you” from the sales team!

Many marketers I talk with dismiss the benefits of having a Site Search function on their website. This oft overlooked feature offers numerous benefits for both your company and your customer. Let’s look at a few.

Simplify Your Client’s Surfing Experience
Site search not only makes your client’s life simpler, it helps your support staff as well. One of the most popular reasons for current clients to visit is to find answers and support for product related questions. For sites with an extensive Knowledge Base or Help section, navigating through the directories can be time-consuming and frustrating for clients. Often, they feel they are in an emergency situation and need an answer fast. That’s when they pick up the phone and call you (or your support staff), asking for help in a panicked tone. If they were able to search your website for the exact answer they wanted, this call may have been prevented.

Audit Your Website Functionality
Often marketers are so busy building new pages, creating email blasts and tending to every day tasks that they don’t have the time to sit back and evaluate their current website from a visitor’s perspective. If this sounds familiar, a site search can help you gain an overall look at the functionality of your layout and design. It’s not uncommon to take for granted that it’s easy to navigate through your pages when you’re the one who built them, but are your prospects able to find what they need? If you review your site search logs and notice that an overwhelming number of visitors are searching for the same keyword, perhaps it might be worth displaying that information or page link more prominently on your homepage or navigation. This will prevent customers from wandering off if they can’t easily find what they are looking for.

Gain Prospect Insight & Increase Sales
Viewing what your prospects search for can be a very valuable tool during the sales cycle. It’s a no-nonsense way to see what their priorities are in choosing a product. Knowing your prospect’s exact needs in their own words can help the sales team mold future conversations to showcase product features that the lead will find most desirable. They will feel that it’s as if the product was uniquely made for their situation. Nothing shows intent like a search for pricing, letting the sales rep know this is not a casual visitor browsing the site and it may be time to start making a deal.