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The Five Myths of Lead Generation

Administrator — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 18:30:00 GMT

By Jeffrey Cody, Senior Marketing Manager, Campaigner®

Myths, folk tales and urban legends make for entertaining storytelling, and can even teach a lesson or two. But when it comes to the real business of lead generation, myths and misperceptions can cost you money and customers.

Myths about lead generation can lead to faulty practices and missed opportunities. Below we bust five of the most common myths about lead generation. Use our tips to debunk bad practices and craft strategies that will deliver the happy ending of leads that convert to customers.

Myth #1 - It’s all about cost per lead

Many marketing departments focus on achieving a certain number of leads at a certain cost per lead. Lead efforts should instead be focused on cost per acquisition, cost per upselling the customer, and cost per lifetime value of a customer, all worked backward into the lead generation effort. It’s easy to build a campaign that will create thousands of leads for a nickel per lead but you run the risk of none of them ever converting. You can lose thousands of nickels, frustrate your sales team and not get anything out of the program.

For example, if you have a model that says you think your best close rate is $50 per lead to get a program done, you might find an opportunity where $1,000 per lead closing at 80 percent and is worth 50x per customer. Instead of a hyper-focus on cost per lead of the campaign consider a comprehensive formula that measures the true return of your efforts.

Myth #2: Lead scoring revolves around lead source

In recent years, the emergence of marketing automation tools have led sales teams to believe that they can create millions of leads and score them initially based on “lead source.” Using these tools, sales & marketing teams score leads and then realize that they no longer like the lead source. They then change the scoring, raising or lowering the base lead source score, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The right way of measuring a lead should be around explicit and implicit information provided by the lead at initial sign-up. You should focus less about the source, but rather on job title, industry, the number of sales reps, or budgets. After all, if you didn’t think the source was worthy, you wouldn’t have started there to begin with. You can then follow those attributes all the way through the sales process and build a lead scoring profile. For example, you may find that CEO leads come in and close or it may be deals of a certain sales size that have a high close rate.

The inverse is when you find a certain job title that doesn’t close well, takes a lot of the sales people’s time, isn’t a high-revenue deal, has a high rate of churn or has high support costs. You can use these profiles as a part of your lead scoring to help you improve your targeting to reach more of your best leads and to assess whether to continue certain types of campaigns.

Myth #3: Landing pages produce the most leads

In the past, marketing departments used single-page Web forms with minimal information to get more out of their lead generation efforts. Prospects would be driven to these pages and forced through a call-to-action gateway before they could access any other information. There are times when this is the right action, but often good prospects, who may be more qualified than the average lead you are capturing, are turned away because they are unable to find the extra information they are seeking.

This is common when prospects find your site via a search engine. The path is determined by the type of link they click – organic or paid. The organic link would have led to your website where they would have found the information, but the paid click leads them through this forced funnel. You should treat the same person who could randomly have picked either path with the same amount of respect, especially since people want more data before giving up personal information. Educated consumers often become your best customers, so make it easy for all prospects to access information about your solutions. When you provide equal access regardless of link type, you will have shorter sales cycles, fewer frustrated leads and a better reputation.

Myth #4: Drip campaigns are a necessity

Never run a drip campaign for the sake of checking it off on your campaign list. Every time you send an email out you are welcoming prospects to unsubscribe and if they unsubscribe you have lost the ability to ever communicate with them again. Worse, you could provoke them to cancel your services, increasing churn. It is essential to find a balance between having a drip program because you know you need one (and you know it can work) and risking that really critical information, such as a product enhancement or a special promotion, may not get delivered to them because they unsubscribed four emails back.

A good strategy for drip campaigns is to adopt a “less is more” approach or a triggers-based approach. In this way you maintain communication so that prospects remember you but minimize the risk of them unsubscribing or canceling your service.

Myth #5: The Marketing team is controlling the communications stream

To make the most of lead generation, you need to have a communications plan that includes sales and marketing. Let’s say you have a free trial on your website or sign-up form and it requires sales intervention to follow-up. The marketing team creates a drip email campaign to keep the lead engaged for days zero through 30 of the trial period. But your plan has a flaw.

Your 12-email, 30-day drip campaign is not the only way prospects are getting communication. No matter what, the prospect will be contacted by the sales team. You have a controlled process in place but without considering the dynamics of the entire process you risk frustrating or losing a prospect.

In conversations with a salesperson a shift may have occurred in the prospect’s need, but your drip marketing program doesn’t reflect that need. As a result, your messaging may annoy, misinform the prospect, or lengthen or kill a sales cycle. When it comes to planning lead nurturing communications, less can be more. Use your automated tools to personalize campaigns based on real time information. This will ensure targeted, relevant messaging that helps turn a lead into a customer.

Myths and legends make for good conversation but cannot provide a sustainable foundation for engaging your customers. Knowing the difference between fact and fiction and using that knowledge will enable you to build a solid and sustainable lead generation process that delivers results.

How the Web’s Six Oldest Sites Look Today

Amberly Dressler — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 17:30:00 GMT

The Internet’s first domain name – Symbolics.com – turned 28 last week and the domain world partied like it was 1985, or at least it should have.

After all, it was the year Michael Jordan was named NBA Rookie of the Year, the LA Lakers beat the Boston Celtics in the 39th NBA Championship, MacGyver debuted, Bo Jackson won the Heisman Trophy and the world’s first-ever domains were registered.

Source: Wikipedia

Let’s look at how the first registered domains look today:

1. symbolics.com

2. bbn.com

3. think.com

4. mcc.com

5. dec.com

6. northrop.com

Exploring White Label SEO Solutions

Michael Garrity — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 21:00:00 GMT

A business typically uses a white label software solution to offer its customers a service (or services) it may not have the internal resources to provide on its own. These solutions allow the company to provide additional functionality or resources while using its own unique branding, rather than the name and logo of the company that developed the software.

For Internet marketers and SEO professionals, using white label software can free them up to shift their focus toward other important business aspects. In other words, this software does the vast majority of the SEO work. Thus, these solutions level the playing field for marketers, because despite how much experience they may or may not have with professional search engine optimization, they'll be able to find a solution that will fit their needs. And since this software is white label, it ensures that the results appear, to the marketer's clients, to be coming from an in-house team.

So, if you’re in the market for while label SEO software, check out the following round-up of some of the best solutions available today.

Raven Tools
Technically, Raven Tools is a “marketing platform” that offers a variety of white label SEO tools. These include SEO management, research and keyword targeting, competitor analysis and the ability to research, organize and monitor link-building efforts with ease.

6Qube
The private label SEO software from 6Qube was designed specifically for companies using platforms like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla or manual development to offer their marketing services. It comes with source code-level white labeling capabilities, call tracking and recording, lead tracking and management and detailed analytics reporting.

SheerSEO
SEO pros can use SheerSEO to track their rankings on Google, Yahoo and Bing, track the Google PageRank of multiple pages over time, estimate potential traffic, use Google Analytics, check keyword density on select Web pages, submit sites to multiple Web directories and much more. The solution will even gather a list of a site’s main referring links, including page URL, page rank and link text.

WebCEO
WebCEO's white label SEO software comes with a full suite of SEO tools, including a rank checker, backlink checker, website auditor and an online keyword tool, in addition to a number of DIY features for keyword research, SEO and link building.

My SEO Tool
There’s no confusion in the name of this 100 percent white label SEO client management platform, which comes complete with SEO ranking, Google Analytics integration, social media tools and AdWords API integration. It also offers the ability to work with 10 to an unlimited number of websites (based on the package you select), 500-5000 keywords and 10,000-300,000 monitored backlinks.

BrightLocal
BrightLocal enables its white label partners to create a profile, add their logos, colors and unique text to their SEO solution, and customize all of their SEO reports. This means they can take advantage of BrightLocal’s suite of local SEO tools that help companies audit and track their search engine ranking performance, utilize the Google+ Local Wizard tool and stay tuned into the needs and concerns of their clients’ customers with the ReviewBiz feature.

Agency Platform
Professional marketers can take advantage of Agency Platform’s white label SEO solutions, which include SEO, SEO reseller, local SEO and PPC services, which offer a user dashboard, SEO KPI reports, SEO and PPC audits, reputation monitoring, social media management, weekly SEO alerts and the ability to manage unlimited accounts.

Start Promoting: Holiday Guide for Merchants

Allison Howen — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 21:20:00 GMT

The term “holiday” is defined as a day of festivity or recreation when no work is done. For merchants, however, holidays tend to increase the workload and (hopefully) sales, because holidays typically give consumers more free time (and a reason) to shop for themselves, for others and for festive products, in general.

In order to receive the benefits that holidays can bring in, merchants must first spend time creating a marketing plan for each special day. For example, popular holidays, such as Thanksgiving or Independence Day, require months of planning and robust marketing, including search advertisements, an email campaign and a social strategy. On the other hand, merchants may decide that email and social are suitable channels for promoting smaller holidays, like Grandparents’ Day or Groundhog Day.

To prepare the appropriate type of campaign for each holiday, merchants must first choose which special dates to acknowledge. Luckily, Website Magazine has compiled a list of holidays, complete with some strategic tips, to help merchants plan out their marketing initiatives. Check out the month-by-month breakdown of important dates below:

(Note: the dates are based on the 2013 calendar)

January

Merchants should use January not only to recuperate from last year’s busiest shopping season, but also as a time to start preparing for next year’s holiday shopping season. This is because December’s holiday campaigns are still top-of-mind, and should provide merchants with insights into what worked and what didn’t work. That being said, January also has some pretty important holidays that merchants can use to promote sales, such as New Year’s Day and Martin Luther King Day.

January 1 – New Year’s Day

January 20 – Inauguration Day (Once every four years after the presidential election)

January 21 – Martin Luther King Day (third Monday in January)

February

February hosts both popular holidays that require strong marketing, such as Valentine’s Day, as well as some quirky holidays, like Groundhog Day and Mardi Gras, that can be promoted with a strategic email and social campaign. Additionally, Leap Day occurs in February about every four years, which presents merchants with a unique opportunity to offer some exclusive sales. Lent also provides some clever marketing tactics, as those who observe Lent typically give up a personal vice during this time (from Feb. 13 through March 30). Perhaps you can encourage them through their journey by offering replacements.

February 2 – Groundhog Day

February 10 – Chinese New Year (The first day of the Chinese calendar)

February 12 – Lincoln’s Birthday

February 12 – Mardi Gras (The last day before Lent)

February 14 – Valentine’s Day

February 18 – Presidents’ Day (third Monday in February)

February 29 (2016) – Leap Day (typically every four years)

March

The most popular holiday in March is typically St. Patrick’s Day, however, in 2013, Easter also falls in this month, which means that merchants should plan their campaigns accordingly. Furthermore, March 20 is the first day of spring, which merchants can use as a way to promote new spring/summer items.

March 17 – St. Patrick’s Day

March 20 – First Day of Spring (Spring Equinox)

March 25 – Passover Begins (starts on the 15th day of the Jewish month of Nissan)

March 31 – Easter (first Sunday after or on the first full moon, after the Spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere)

April

April might start out as a joke, but merchants should take marketing campaigns during this month seriously. This is because Tax Day is April 15, which means that a good majority of consumers are going to have some extra spending money.

April 1 – April Fool's Day

April 2 – Passover Ends

April 15 – Tax Day

April 22 – Earth Day

May

Before the flowers begin to bloom in May, merchants should have their Mother’s Day campaigns running in full force – as this is one of the busiest shopping times of the season.

May 5 – Cinco de Mayo

May 12 – Mother’s Day (second Sunday of May)

May 27 – Memorial Day (last Monday in May)

June

With summer on everyone's mind, June is a great time to launch some “hot” Father’s Day deals.

June 16 – Father’s Day (third Sunday of June)

June 21 – First Day of Summer (Summer Solstice)

July

Independence Day is summer’s biggest holiday, which means that merchants should start launching their marketing campaigns for Fourth of July shortly after Father’s Day in order to receive the best results.

July 4 – Independence Day

August

Although August may be lacking big-name holidays, merchants should use this month to promote end-of-summer and back-to-school sales.

August 21 – Senior Citizens Day

September

Back-to-school sales typically run through the end of September, but there are a few notable holidays in this month that merchants can use within promotions, such as Labor Day and Patriot Day.

September 2 – Labor Day (first Monday in September)

September 8 – National Grandparents’ Day (first Sunday after Labor Day)

September 11 – Patriot Day

September 22 – First Day of Fall (Fall Equinox)

October

October is a time when merchants can launch spooky sales to capitalize on Halloween. They should also use this time to start preparing for the busiest shopping season of the year, which is right around the corner.

October 6 – Boss's Day

October 14 – Columbus Day (second Monday in October)

October 31 – Halloween

November

The busiest shopping season of the year officially kicks off on Thanksgiving every year, which means that merchants should start launching holiday-related search advertisements at the beginning of this month in order to see sales skyrocket on Black Friday and Small Business Saturday.

November 11 – Veterans’ Day

November 28 – Thanksgiving Day (fourth Thursday in November)

November 28 – First Day of Hanukkah (25th day of Kislev, according to the Hebrew calendar)

November 29 – Black Friday (first Friday after Thanksgiving)

November 30 – Small Business Saturday (first Saturday after Thanksgiving)

December

Holiday sales should be in full force by December 1, but merchants should continue their holiday marketing initiatives through Christmas, before switching to year-end sale campaigns.

December 2 – Cyber Monday (first Monday after Thanksgiving)

December 5 – Last Day of Hanukkah (Eight days after the start of Hanukkah)

December 7 – Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day

December 21 – First Day of Winter (Winter Solstice)

December 24 – Christmas Eve

December 25 – Christmas

December 26 – Kwanzaa (until January 1st)

December 31 (New Year’s Eve)

Other Important Dates

While this list has more than 40 important dates on it, there are undoubtedly many other holidays that merchants can create marketing campaigns around – like National Hug Day (January 21), National Pancake Day (February 28) and Sweetest Day (the third Saturday in October). Moreover, merchants can create sales and promotions around dates that are special to their company, like an anniversary or founder’s birthday. By creating sales around specific dates, merchants can help increase traffic and conversions as it provides consumers with a sense of urgency. That being said, it is also important to not overdo or promote holidays too close together, because consumers won't pay attention to a "special holiday sale" if it occurs too frequently.

The Low-Down on Domain Names

Administrator — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 19:00:00 GMT

By Kelly Meeneghan, Manager, 1&1 Internet, Inc.

For any business, having a clear address to your physical location is imperative to ensure that your current and potential customers/clients can find you. This accessibility ultimately leads to an increase in both clientele and sales. The same goes for the Internet. It's now common knowledge that in order for a business to succeed, you must create an effective online presence. The first step to accomplish this feat is to start with a domain name, a virtual address, with which the public can use to find a business on the Web.

A domain name is the sequence of letters after a “www.” through the “.com/.net/etc” of a URL. Representing an Internet Protocol (IP) resource, a domain can be associated with the personal computer used to access the Internet, the server computer that is hosting a website or the website itself. Put simply, this name replaces the use of overly complicated and detailed technical codes, which are assigned to every space on the Internet. Without a domain name, no one will be able to find and view a website, directly entering domain names is in fact the fastest and most convenient way for people to discover a business.

As you decide to venture into the online world, choosing an effective domain name should be top priority. Understanding how computers read domains can help guide you through the process of choosing the most appropriate and effective domain. It is useful to know that domains are organized by the Internet from right to left, the opposite of how we normally read.

Therefore, the first section you come upon is the top-level domain (TLD), or domain extension, which identifies the purpose and mission of the website. For example, in 1and1.com, .com is the TLD. In fact, it is a gTLD (general top-level domain), which illustrates that it is available for world-wide registration regardless of citizenship, residence or age. Most commonly used, .com is often the first gTLD that businesses consider. Though a smart decision due to its popularity, we encourage businesses to evaluate the potential effectiveness of the other gTLDs. For example, .org extensions are best utilized by non-profit organizations while .name’s are adopted by personal pages. Some businesses prefer .biz to illustrate its professionalism and those that have optimized their website for mobile viewing must use .mobi. Each holds their own purpose and is chosen at the discretion of its owner. By specifying your type of business through the domain extension, you can create a greater impression on visitors rather than misleading them by selecting an inappropriate domain.

Taking TLDs a step further, there are ccTLDs (country code top-level domains), which are assigned to specific countries and are not available to everyone. Such domains include .us for the United States, .de for Germany and .es for Spain, to name a few. The purpose of ccTLDs is to encourage local businesses to identify themselves as a business of that country. Specifying the country of residence within the TLD can help businesses better target their local audiences more directly. Each country has their own registration restrictions. Therefore, be sure to understand these guidelines before making an investment in the domain.

Next, the section to the left of the TLD is considered the domain. Some businesses wish to showcase the official business name, well-known slogan, industry or location through their domain. Though all can be good ideas, 1&1 suggests that the business chooses to feature the official business name. This keeps it simple for you and your visitors to remember and not hinder their potential return to the site in the future. If the name is not available with the desired TLD, like .com, consider an alternative TLD before changing the domain name. Perhaps a .org or .biz TLD will be suitable and therefore you can keep the unique domain.

Once a domain name is decided, it needs to be registered with a domain registrar. This grants you the right to use the domain but it does not assign you legal ownership. Different TLDs and registrars may list domains at different price points, so be sure to shop around to find one you are comfortable with. Once completed, you are ready to begin designing your website.

About the Author: Kelly Meeneghan is a manager for 1&1 Internet, Inc. (www.1and1.com). As a global leader among Web hosts, 1&1 provides businesses with the tools necessary to get online and be successful. Meeneghan also wrote the contributor piece, Ditch Your Yellow Pages, for WebsiteMagazine.com.

Sign of the Times: Email Design Look Book

Amberly Dressler — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 13:11:00 GMT

Responsys, a leading provider of email and cross-channel marketing solutions, has released its fourth annual Email Design Look Book. The Look Book, available for free download, celebrates 20 innovative and inspiring email designs.

“Responsys’ experienced team of designers, copywriters, strategists and services employees analyze tens of thousands of emails every year to ensure we’re keeping up with the cutting-edge of design, messaging, coding and strategy,” says Chad White, Research Director at Responsys.

“Each piece stands on its own as a great example of email marketing creative, but when viewed together, this collection reveals the priorities that are critical for our industry:

* Mobile is forcing email designs to adapt.

* Designs must deliver something unexpected to stand out in crowded inboxes.

* Personalized content allows one-to-one messaging.

* Automated programs deliver messages to subscribers when they're most helpful.

* Defensive design creates engaging experiences even when images are blocked."

The Look Book also serves as an inspirational tool for email marketers.

“Every year marketers enjoy the Email Design Look Book because it gives them a chance take a step away from their own program and get a fresh perspective from brands that are trying something different,” says Wacarra Yeomans, Creative Director at Responys. “The Email Design Look Book provides exposure into industries, programs and countries a marketer may not already be tracking.

“Marketers are creative people by nature; when they take time to look at the way other marketers tackle the same challenges, it can spark an idea that leads to a new spin for their current program.”

Responsys is also open to new ideas. With four Look Books to its name, the company has also evolved with the industry.

“The most important difference between the first and fourth editions of the Email Design Look Book is that we’ve broadened our definition of “design,” says White. “Over time we’ve put more focus on strategic and tactical designs, in addition to looking for great creative design. Rising consumer expectations around relevancy and technology, changes like the adoption of smartphones and tablets, have forced email marketers to become more technical and take advantage of data analytics like never before. The REI, Helzberg and Sky emails in this year’s Look Book are great examples of brainy designs, as is the LinkedIn email from last year’s.

“We’ve also taken a more worldview over time. The first edition Email Design Look Book only had emails from U.S. brands, whereas 30 percent of this year’s are from international companies. U.S. brands are undeniably the world’s leaders in email marketing, but European brands are not far behind and there are some great gems to be found in Latin America and elsewhere. As the world gets smaller, marketers should cast a wide net when looking for inspiration. The Pizza Express and Royal National Institute of Blind People emails are two of my favorite examples from abroad.”

To download the look book, click here.