Transparent Marketing and Social Media: Twitter and Facebook are the new Woodward and Bernstein

2919598610 464aea59a1 Transparent Marketing and Social Media: Twitter and Facebook are the new Woodward and Bernstein

From time to time here on the blog I like to revisit Transparent Marketing: How to earn the trust of a skeptical consumer, which I believe to be an excellent blueprint for the modern marketer. Of course, I may be biased because it was written by my boss, the Director of MECLABS Group, Flint McGlaughlin.

But I consider it to be one of the best things Flint has ever written (second only to his name in the lower-right-hand corner of my paycheck), because it was so incredibly prescient. It was written in 2003. And while it was certainly relevant at the time, it has become an even better guide to modern marketing thanks to the rise of social media.

Rage against the machine meets unbridled access to information plus megaphone

The recent meteoric rise of social media, coupled with Google’s impressively fast and accurate algorithim, means that now every 13-year-old with an iPhone is an instant fact-checker. Teen angst can be channeled at “the man” (sorry, that’s now you) with the tweet of a button. Or even worse…mom angst.

Bill Maher sums it up best, “…we just had the fifth anniversary of YouTube and the twelfth of Google, and between them, they’re killing off a great institution: lying. You just can’t lie anymore – facts are too easy to check, everything is on video…our Internet conversations are forever.”

Of course, where’s the line, right? Unless your email marketing is trying to help a Nigerian prince get his oil wealth safely to the shores of America, you’re probably not outright lying in any of your marketing. So I’m going to present a few examples and we’ll play “You Make the Call.” Share your opinions via the comments section, Twitter, however you want.

And when you read the below examples, you might be thinking, “Wait a minute Dan. You are a supersleuth private eye type who has an uncanny knack for getting to the bottom of things.” Really, I only have two assets. A free, unlimited, lifetime plan for Google searches. And the ability to read. Yes, it’s that easy for your customers to dig stuff up.

Like a rock? Or like a brick?

If you’ve taken any MarketingExperiments training, you know that we often recommend using third-party credibility indicators to reduce anxiety. And a central tenet of Transparent Marketing is “Let someone else do your bragging.”

However, it doesn’t say “Let anyone else do your bragging.” You can’t pick just anyone. You must choose wisely. Chevy’s homepage proudly boasts, “No one has more Consumers Digest ‘Best Buys’ for the 2010 model year than Chevrolet.” And it’s not just the homepage. TV ads, magazines ads, banners ads…the entire campaign is built around Consumers Digest.

The first thing that comes to my mind is, “What the heck is Consumers Digest?” To the Google…

Let’s first talk about what Consumers Digest isn’t – Consumer Reports. (bait and switch?) According to Wikipedia, “The publication has no connection to the Consumer Reports magazine published by Consumers Union (which, unlike Consumers Digest, is an independent non-profit organization).

Consumers Digest is a for-profit magazine. And how does it make a profit? Not through subscriptions, it has zero subscribers. “Many car makers have financial ties to the publication,” according to The Wall Street Journal (although, in fairness, it does sell some issues on the newsstand. How many? Nobody seems to know).

Consumers Digest website (I’m not giving them the link juice, use Google or common sense to find it) is poorly designed, to put it kindly. After a thorough (five-second) analysis, Senior Manager of Research Partnerships Andy Mott remarked, “It looks like it was built by a third-grader.” And I’m not trying to be harsh, no website is perfect, but they don’t even look like they’re trying. The site is essentially PotemkinVillage.com:

  • There are several bullet points in both columns purportedly stating what they review (baby gear, cameras, etc) that are not links, you can’t click on them and find out more
  • In fact, there are essentially only three pages to the whole site – homepage, latest issue (table of contents has no links to content), and automotive best buys (in fairness, you can click-through for a paragraph-long “review” of each car)
  • Best line on the site… “If you are interested in receiving information on how you can subscribe to our Web site, please write to: Postmaster, Consumers Digest Communications, 520 Lake Cook Road, Suite 500, Deerfield, IL 60015 or send an e-mail to: postmaster@consumersdigest.com”

And then there are the Automotive “Best Buys” themselves. While different independent ratings organizations may disagree, you would think that there would be some overlap. Consumer Reports’ Best Car Overall for 2010 is the Lexus LS 460L, which “scored an outstanding 99 out of 100 in our road test, making it our highest-rated vehicle.” While Consumers Digest has 44 “Best Buys” for 2010, the LS 460L is not one of them.

In fact, of Consumer Reports’ top cars in ten categories, only two made it onto the Consumers Digest list. You guessed it, both were Chevrolets.

Before I ask you to make the call for this campaign, let me set the tone. First of all, Chevy is in a segment – automobiles – that is usually heavily researched by customers. Cars tend not to be a point-of-purchase decision, like cereal or gum. So if a customer was interested in a Chevy, how hard would it to be to Google “Consumers Digest” to learn more about these awards the carmaker has been boasting about?

Secondly, Chevy isn’t just any car company. In fact, the only reason it is in business is because just last year taxpayers bailed the company out, at which time then General Motors President and CEO Fritz Henderson said, “We are deeply appreciative for the support we have received during this historic transformation, and we will work hard to repay this trust by building a successful new General Motors.”So while third-party awards could certainly help Chevy regain that trust, does Consumers Digest fit that bill? In other words, I won Who’s Who Among American High School Students but I didn’t brag about it and put in on my resume.

Social media factor: So far, with the notable exception of The Wall Street Journal, the mainstream press hasn’t reported on this campaign as far as I can tell. But the first hit in Google for “Consumers Digest fake” is a blog. And I found tons of blog posts claiming that Consumers Digest is fake, from the well-known (Clark Howard) and the unknown. So, for even the mildly curious, it is quite easy to learn more.

Now marketer, I turn it over to you, if you worked in the Chevy marketing department, would you have green-lighted this campaign?

You Make the Call


So real, it’s fake

OK, not to bias you, but that first one it a bit of a gimme. So let’s ratchet it up a notch. This next call comes courtesy of my wife.

For my last transparent marketing blog post, I told you how impressed I was with Domino’s “The Pizza Turnaround” campaign by Crispin, Porter & Bogusky.

As a follow up, they came up with their new “Pizza Holdouts” campaign. If you’re not familiar with it, they basically stalk people who haven’t tried the pizza yet with a personal ad campaign. Billboards that say, “Bill Johnson, our sauce is now herbier” along with signs, trucks, planes, radio announcements, etc.

Eventually the person takes the hint and, surprise, loves it! My wife is convinced that these are fake. And ever since I wrote about Domino’s Pizza the first time, she’s wanted me to do a follow up to expose how they turned their backs on transparent marketing this time. To the Google!

Well, it turns out, as best as I can figure, this is for real. Again, my research is not extensive. For the Chevy info above, I simply typed “Consumers Digest” into Google, found an interesting Wikipedia entry, and then tried “Consumers Digest fake.” “Pizza Holdout fake” didn’t provide me with the same flood of bad publicity, but it did show a very wise use of social media by Domino’s – they listened. And responded.

The first search result was a YouTube video of the campaign. Right below the video are negative comments, most notably skepticism over the reality of the video. Domino’s responded to those negative comments with more info about the campaign. And since “Uploader Comments” show first in YouTube, you quickly see these replies. While they didn’t address every negative comment on the page (there will always be naysayers), they did prominently speak to a few key issues.

TransparentMarketingblogpost Transparent Marketing and Social Media: Twitter and Facebook are the new Woodward and Bernstein

And that was about the extent of my research. After all, who researches the purchase of a pizza that much?

Of course, just using common sense, there are a few obvious things to be skeptical of. After Domino’s made a personal ad campaign for you in your town that your friends and family were in on, and then shoved a camera in your face when you tried the pizza, could you really bring yourself to say, “Tastes like cardboard warmed over. Honey, call the local pizza joint.”? (And what town has only one Bill Johnson?)

Social media factor: Social media played a positive role in this case, thanks to Domino’s proactively responding to skeptical customers. Also as part of my lazy research, I went to Domino’s microsites where they promote use of Facebook and Twitter. Since they’re encouraging social media and giving people positive things to tweet about (such as a contest to capture so-called pizza holdouts), not surprisingly, there seems to be mostly positive stuff out there.

So the campaign is real yet it looks so real some people think it’s fake. If you were asked to green-light this campaign, what would you do?

You Make the Call


Trust but verify

You didn’t think I could write a post about transparent marketing without shining that harsh light of analysis in the mirror, did you? You did? Really? Then just skip the next part and move right along.

Here at MarketingExperiments, our job is to serve you, our audience, and help you do your job better. To that end, we freely publish our experiments.

However, in publishing those experiments we have a debate raging internally, because we anonymize our experiments. We don’t share the name or our Research Partners and we obscure identifying information as well. And just in case a competitor could figure out which company we’re talking about, we also don’t share data like “number of conversions.”

On the one hand, we feel that this does a disservice to you, our audience. We want to be transparent and share as many juicy details as possible.

However, we do work with real-world Research Partners on their actual marketing campaigns. We believe this provides far greater value than running hypothetical experiments with brands that don’t exist. But because our Research Partners are actual companies competing every day for business, they view the experimentation we do as sensitive information. They consider “number of conversions” and other data we use in experimentation to be sensitive business intelligence that could give competitors a leg up.

Social media factor: Zero. I’ve never seen anyone tweet, blog, or even Foursquare about this, and I listen to the conversation every day. In fact, other than this blog post, no one probably even noticed.

So what would you do if you were in our shoes (well, mostly sandals, our office is by the beach)?

You Make the Call


True perfection

If you follow the news at all, you probably know where I’m headed with this “You Make the Call” theme – the imperfect game. Long story short, Armando Galarraga was one out away from a perfect game when umpire Jim Joyce blew the call. Galarraga didn’t throw a temper tantrum. And after the game, once Joyce saw the replay on TV, he apologized for getting it wrong.

That’s transparency. No one is right all the time. And your produce isn’t right for everyone.

So how can you apply these lessons to your own transparent marketing?

  • Don’t be everything to everyone – Focus on what you do best and hammer it home.
  • C’mon, keep it clean – That line isn’t always totally clear, as I’ve referenced above, but some practices are egregious. Quick hint: If you’ve hired a consultant or agency with the words “Black Hat” in its name, you’ve crossed the line. Stay on the sunny side of marketing.
  • Listen – Social media makes it very easy to listen to your customers. Don’t just use “powerful auto-tweet technology” to build followers and blast promotions. Hear what they have to say. Then go the extra mile. Ditch the auto-tweet technology and actually have a conversation. You may be tipped off to (and mitigate) a mistake before it becomes a full-blown crisis.
  • Test – Good marketers with good intentions can disagree on how transparent your brand should be and what will work best. While one of you might be wrong, the customer never is. So test. See what works.
  • Hear it straight from the source – Heck, just read Transparent Marketing: How to earn the trust of a skeptical consumer. It’s all in there. And it’s a free download.
  • Of mice, men, and marketers – In the end, even with the best intention of transparent marketing, you will go awry. While writing this very blog post I got a note calling a promotional email I wrote a scam. Ouch! But, as with anything, if your aim is true, you’re more likely to hit the target.

Related Resources

Transparent Marketing: A slice of honesty from Domino’s Pizza

Holistic Marketing Optimization: What’s more likely to show up on Twitter?

Resources on Transparent Marketing

Photo Attribution: Ruovesi

 Transparent Marketing and Social Media: Twitter and Facebook are the new Woodward and Bernstein

Transparent Marketing and Social Media: Twitter and Facebook are the new Woodward and Bernstein

2919598610 464aea59a1 Transparent Marketing and Social Media: Twitter and Facebook are the new Woodward and BernsteinFrom time to time here on the blog I like to revisit Transparent Marketing: How to earn the trust of a skeptical consumer, which I believe to be an excellent blueprint for the modern marketer. Of course, I may be biased because it was written by my boss, the Director of MECLABS Group, Flint McGlaughlin.

But I consider it to be one of the best things Flint has ever written (second only to his name in the lower-right-hand corner of my paycheck), because it was so incredibly prescient. It was written in 2003. And while it was certainly relevant at the time, it has become an even better guide to modern marketing thanks to the rise of social media.

Rage against the machine meets unbridled access to information plus megaphone

The recent meteoric rise of social media, coupled with Google’s impressively fast and accurate algorithim, means that now every 13-year-old with an iPhone is an instant fact-checker. Teen angst can be channeled at “the man” (sorry, that’s now you) with the tweet of a button. Or even worse…mom angst.

Bill Maher sums it up best, “…we just had the fifth anniversary of YouTube and the twelfth of Google, and between them, they’re killing off a great institution: lying. You just can’t lie anymore – facts are too easy to check, everything is on video…our Internet conversations are forever.”

Of course, where’s the line, right? Unless your email marketing is trying to help a Nigerian prince get his oil wealth safely to the shores of America, you’re probably not outright lying in any of your marketing. So I’m going to present a few examples and we’ll play “You Make the Call.” Share your opinions via the comments section, Twitter, however you want.

And when you read the below examples, you might be thinking, “Wait a minute Dan. You are a supersleuth private eye type who has an uncanny knack for getting to the bottom of things.” Really, I only have two assets. A free, unlimited, lifetime plan for Google searches. And the ability to read. Yes, it’s that easy for your customers to dig stuff up.

Like a rock? Or like a brick?

If you’ve taken any MarketingExperiments training, you know that we often recommend using third-party credibility indicators to reduce anxiety. And a central tenet of Transparent Marketing is “Let someone else do your bragging.”

However, it doesn’t say “Let anyone else do your bragging.” You can’t pick just anyone. You must choose wisely. Chevy’s homepage proudly boasts, “No one has more Consumers Digest ‘Best Buys’ for the 2010 model year than Chevrolet.” And it’s not just the homepage. TV ads, magazines ads, banners ads…the entire campaign is built around Consumers Digest.

The first thing that comes to my mind is, “What the heck is Consumers Digest?” To the Google…

Let’s first talk about what Consumers Digest isn’t – Consumer Reports. (bait and switch?) According to Wikipedia, “The publication has no connection to the Consumer Reports magazine published by Consumers Union (which, unlike Consumers Digest, is an independent non-profit organization).

Consumers Digest is a for-profit magazine. And how does it make a profit? Not through subscriptions, it has zero subscribers. “Many car makers have financial ties to the publication,” according to The Wall Street Journal (although, in fairness, it does sell some issues on the newsstand. How many? Nobody seems to know).

Consumers Digest website (I’m not giving them the link juice, use Google or common sense to find it) is poorly designed, to put it kindly. After a thorough (five-second) analysis, Senior Manager of Research Partnerships Andy Mott remarked, “It looks like it was built by a third-grader.” And I’m not trying to be harsh, no website is perfect, but they don’t even look like they’re trying. The site is essentially PotemkinVillage.com:

  • There are several bullet points in both columns purportedly stating what they review (baby gear, cameras, etc) that are not links, you can’t click on them and find out more
  • In fact, there are essentially only three pages to the whole site – homepage, latest issue (table of contents has no links to content), and automotive best buys (in fairness, you can click-through for a paragraph-long “review” of each car)
  • Best line on the site… “If you are interested in receiving information on how you can subscribe to our Web site, please write to: Postmaster, Consumers Digest Communications, 520 Lake Cook Road, Suite 500, Deerfield, IL 60015 or send an e-mail to: postmaster@consumersdigest.com”

And then there are the Automotive “Best Buys” themselves. While different independent ratings organizations may disagree, you would think that there would be some overlap. Consumer Reports’ Best Car Overall for 2010 is the Lexus LS 460L, which “scored an outstanding 99 out of 100 in our road test, making it our highest-rated vehicle.” While Consumers Digest has 44 “Best Buys” for 2010, the LS 460L is not one of them.

In fact, of Consumer Reports’ top cars in ten categories, only two made it onto the Consumers Digest list. You guessed it, both were Chevrolets.

Before I ask you to make the call for this campaign, let me set the tone. First of all, Chevy is in a segment – automobiles – that is usually heavily researched by customers. Cars tend not to be a point-of-purchase decision, like cereal or gum. So if a customer was interested in a Chevy, how hard would it to be to Google “Consumers Digest” to learn more about these awards the carmaker has been boasting about?

Secondly, Chevy isn’t just any car company. In fact, the only reason it is in business is because just last year taxpayers bailed the company out, at which time then General Motors President and CEO Fritz Henderson said, “We are deeply appreciative for the support we have received during this historic transformation, and we will work hard to repay this trust by building a successful new General Motors.”So while third-party awards could certainly help Chevy regain that trust, does Consumers Digest fit that bill? In other words, I won Who’s Who Among American High School Students but I didn’t brag about it and put in on my resume.

Social media factor: So far, with the notable exception of The Wall Street Journal, the mainstream press hasn’t reported on this campaign as far as I can tell. But the first hit in Google for “Consumers Digest fake” is a blog. And I found tons of blog posts claiming that Consumers Digest is fake, from the well-known (Clark Howard) and the unknown. So, for even the mildly curious, it is quite easy to learn more.

Now marketer, I turn it over to you, if you worked in the Chevy marketing department, would you have green-lighted this campaign?

You Make the Call

So real, it’s fake

OK, not to bias you, but that first one it a bit of a gimme. So let’s ratchet it up a notch. This next call comes courtesy of my wife.

For my last transparent marketing blog post, I told you how impressed I was with Domino’s “The Pizza Turnaround” campaign by Crispin, Porter & Bogusky.

As a follow up, they came up with their new “Pizza Holdouts” campaign. If you’re not familiar with it, they basically stalk people who haven’t tried the pizza yet with a personal ad campaign. Billboards that say, “Bill Johnson, our sauce is now herbier” along with signs, trucks, planes, radio announcements, etc.

Eventually the person takes the hint and, surprise, loves it! My wife is convinced that these are fake. And ever since I wrote about Domino’s Pizza the first time, she’s wanted me to do a follow up to expose how they turned their backs on transparent marketing this time. To the Google!

Well, it turns out, as best as I can figure, this is for real. Again, my research is not extensive. For the Chevy info above, I simply typed “Consumers Digest” into Google, found an interesting Wikipedia entry, and then tried “Consumers Digest fake.” “Pizza Holdout fake” didn’t provide me with the same flood of bad publicity, but it did show a very wise use of social media by Domino’s – they listened. And responded.

The first search result was a YouTube video of the campaign. Right below the video are negative comments, most notably skepticism over the reality of the video. Domino’s responded to those negative comments with more info about the campaign. And since “Uploader Comments” show first in YouTube, you quickly see these replies. While they didn’t address every negative comment on the page (there will always be naysayers), they did prominently speak to a few key issues.

TransparentMarketingblogpost Transparent Marketing and Social Media: Twitter and Facebook are the new Woodward and Bernstein

And that was about the extent of my research. After all, who researches the purchase of a pizza that much?

Of course, just using common sense, there are a few obvious things to be skeptical of. After Domino’s made a personal ad campaign for you in your town that your friends and family were in on, and then shoved a camera in your face when you tried the pizza, could you really bring yourself to say, “Tastes like cardboard warmed over. Honey, call the local pizza joint.”? (And what town has only one Bill Johnson?)

Social media factor: Social media played a positive role in this case, thanks to Domino’s proactively responding to skeptical customers. Also as part of my lazy research, I went to Domino’s microsites where they promote use of Facebook and Twitter. Since they’re encouraging social media and giving people positive things to tweet about (such as a contest to capture so-called pizza holdouts), not surprisingly, there seems to be mostly positive stuff out there.

So the campaign is real yet it looks so real some people think it’s fake. If you were asked to green-light this campaign, what would you do?

You Make the Call

Trust but verify

You didn’t think I could write a post about transparent marketing without shining that harsh light of analysis in the mirror, did you? You did? Really? Then just skip the next part and move right along.

Here at MarketingExperiments, our job is to serve you, our audience, and help you do your job better. To that end, we freely publish our experiments.

However, in publishing those experiments we have a debate raging internally, because we anonymize our experiments. We don’t share the name or our Research Partners and we obscure identifying information as well. And just in case a competitor could figure out which company we’re talking about, we also don’t share data like “number of conversions.”

On the one hand, we feel that this does a disservice to you, our audience. We want to be transparent and share as many juicy details as possible.

However, we do work with real-world Research Partners on their actual marketing campaigns. We believe this provides far greater value than running hypothetical experiments with brands that don’t exist. But because our Research Partners are actual companies competing every day for business, they view the experimentation we do as sensitive information. They consider “number of conversions” and other data we use in experimentation to be sensitive business intelligence that could give competitors a leg up.

Social media factor: Zero. I’ve never seen anyone tweet, blog, or even Foursquare about this, and I listen to the conversation every day. In fact, other than this blog post, no one probably even noticed.

So what would you do if you were in our shoes (well, mostly sandals, our office is by the beach)?

You Make the Call

True perfection

If you follow the news at all, you probably know where I’m headed with this “You Make the Call” theme – the imperfect game. Long story short, Armando Galarraga was one out away from a perfect game when umpire Jim Joyce blew the call. Galarraga didn’t throw a temper tantrum. And after the game, once Joyce saw the replay on TV, he apologized for getting it wrong.

That’s transparency. No one is right all the time. And your produce isn’t right for everyone.

So how can you apply these lessons to your own transparent marketing?

  • Don’t be everything to everyone – Focus on what you do best and hammer it home.
  • C’mon, keep it clean – That line isn’t always totally clear, as I’ve referenced above, but some practices are egregious. Quick hint: If you’ve hired a consultant or agency with the words “Black Hat” in its name, you’ve crossed the line. Stay on the sunny side of marketing.
  • Listen – Social media makes it very easy to listen to your customers. Don’t just use “powerful auto-tweet technology” to build followers and blast promotions. Hear what they have to say. Then go the extra mile. Ditch the auto-tweet technology and actually have a conversation. You may be tipped off to (and mitigate) a mistake before it becomes a full-blown crisis.
  • Test – Good marketers with good intentions can disagree on how transparent your brand should be and what will work best. While one of you might be wrong, the customer never is. So test. See what works.
  • Hear it straight from the source – Heck, just read Transparent Marketing: How to earn the trust of a skeptical consumer. It’s all in there. And it’s a free download.
  • Of mice, men, and marketers – In the end, even with the best intention of transparent marketing, you will go awry. While writing this very blog post I got a note calling a promotional email I wrote a scam. Ouch! But, as with anything, if your aim is true, you’re more likely to hit the target.

Related Resources

Transparent Marketing: A slice of honesty from Domino’s Pizza

Holistic Marketing Optimization: What’s more likely to show up on Twitter?

Resources on Transparent Marketing

Photo Attribution: Ruovesi

 Transparent Marketing and Social Media: Twitter and Facebook are the new Woodward and Bernstein

Marketing Optimization: How your peers overcome leaks in their sales and lead generation funnels

511644410 898c1d29f9 300x300 Marketing Optimization: How your peers overcome leaks in their sales and lead generation funnelsIt’s easy to focus on one aspect of your marketing and lose sight of the big picture. So in Wednesday’s free web clinic – Compounding ROI of Sequential Conversion Rate Increases: How one company took a small gain and multiplied it tenfold – Flint McGlaughlin, the Director of MECLABS Group, will help you find the leaks in your sales or lead generation funnel and share three key steps for holistic marketing optimization.

In the meantime, here is our latest community-written blog post to help you understand how your peers deal with optimizing their entire conversion funnel during the customer/client acquisition period…

There’s no simple answer

In a former life I worked in computerized irrigation – a lot of plants, a lot of pipes and a lot of leaks.

The only way to find the leaks was to manually walk up and down each row looking for pooled water on the ground.

The same applies to leaks in the funnel. The only way is to use something like Urchin or Analytics and find the “black-hole pages” – pages traffic goes into never to be seen again. Concentrate on the pages with good volumes of traffic and plug those leaks!

– Dave Collins, Founder & Managing Director of SoftwarePromotions

If your oil funnel had a leak, you’d be sure to replace it

The sales cycle certainly calls for a consistent, quality funnel which has just the right amount of viscosity and throughput.

I believe that it really goes back to the age old question of “How do we integrate marketing and sales?”.

When this question comes up within a company, red flags fly through the roof. It’s a shame because we’re not territorial animals. We’re civilized human beings who should solely be focused on what’s best for our company – because this attitude will ultimately help you achieve more.

Sales and Marketing should align their policies so that quality information is passed from the point of initial contact – inbound or outbound – through the sales cycle. Nurturing is the key fluid in keeping the motor up and running. Having the tools to manage the data is great but it’s human intelligence that ultimately drives nurturing and sales.

People buy from people, not from software or companies. Optimizing the quality of your staff and providing them with tools to better manage and view their data is what companies need to improve lead generation and sales.

For example, landing pages should have some form of unique ID or should be interconnected to CRM so that when related information is recognized, it’s automatically tracked as a touch point. Capture forms should be simple and brief for initial contacts and get more detailed as prospects choose to dig deeper.

– Jason Croyle, Lead Generation Specialist and Social Media Evangelist at InTouch

Connect PPC ads to landing pages to capture forms to lead generation and sales

I deal mainly with Google Analytics, Website Optimizer and AdWords, so my example will be within that frame.

  1. First, connect Google Analytics and AdWords (To track ROI on a variety of ads and keywords.)
  2. All buttons on landing page are tracked using the _trackEvent method. (This will help you determine what buttons/ call-to-actions on your landing pages are receiving the most awareness.)
    1. Buttons on landing page are also tracked using Google Website Optimizer so that we can provide multiple variations of buttons, content, and call-to-actions on landing page.
  3. Combining steps 1 and 2 will allow us to determine what steps, content, ads and call-to-actions work best not only on a micro level, but on a “holistic” level – all together.

Omar Ead, Director at Digitus Marketing

One at a time

Short answer: fix one phase/step at a time. You truly will not know where your fallout point is until you’ve fixed the phases above it. It’s quite easy and inexpensive to test various elements; see what works best to set a baseline. Then move on to the next step in the process and repeat.

I tend to spend a good amount of time building the optimization roadmap before I start tweaking and testing.

– Nick Rice, Regional Manager of Field Marketing at McCann Erickson

Related Resources

Compounding ROI of Sequential Conversion Rate Increases: How one company took a small gain and multiplied it tenfold

Holistic Marketing Optimization: What’s more likely to show up on Twitter?

The Compounding Effect of Micro-Gains: How small performance increases in PPC, landing page conversions, completed sales, and more combine to deliver big improvements in revenue.

Photo Attribution: vrogy

 Marketing Optimization: How your peers overcome leaks in their sales and lead generation funnels

This Just Tested: How 1:1 marketing achieved 21% more clicks and 60% less unsubscribes

Over the past couple of weeks, our content and production team has been mulling through research from multiple companies, trying to find the best experiments for today’s web clinic. It’s always exciting trying to find the right illustrative research that will serve our audience. In the midst of this, a very interesting case study came across my desk that I just had to share with our blog community.

The experiment came from the research library of ThinData 1:1 and was with a large airline that had a strong online presence. They had the goal of improving the level of user engagement (through higher click-through rates and lower unsubscribes) for their customer newsletters. They wanted to test a 1:1 marketing approach and see how much impact a personalized conversation with customers would have.

The Original Newsletter (click-to-enlarge)

AC2 150x150 This Just Tested: How 1:1 marketing achieved 21% more clicks and 60% less unsubscribesFirst, it will be helpful to see what the original newsletter looked like. There are a few key things to note:

1) The goal of the email was to create enough interest on the part of the recipient to get them to click through to a specific flight offer.

2)  Every element on this email was sent generically to large subscriber segments and included offers without any reference to a recipient’s personal preferences.

3) The only (and it’s debatable) 1:1 marketing technique that the original email design included was the name of the recipient.

The 1:1 Marketing Strategy

One-to-one marketing conversation requires a couple of key ingredients, one of which is insight about your customers. So, to understand their customers better, this company created a “customer preference tool.” This tool took previous behavioral/purchase data and mapped out preferences in five key areas (destinations, airports, hotels, etc.). It also gave customers the ability to update their preferences for each of these areas.

So once they had some solid insight about the preferences of their newsletter recipients, they were ready to start a better conversation.

The New Design (click-to-enlarge)

AC1 150x150 This Just Tested: How 1:1 marketing achieved 21% more clicks and 60% less unsubscribesA new email template was created to customize content according to the five key preference categories of the customers. In fact, the tool was inserted at the top of the email and functioned as a table of contents for the email. It also gave recipients a portal to their own preference center to make any changes.

The rest of the email was organized by an algorithm that gave higher placement to offers with higher preference status to the email recipients.

Instead of displaying all possible offers for a category, offers were filtered according to the preferences of the recipient.

Overall, the new email design created a 1:1 marketing conversation that matched the specific motivations of the recipients.

The Results

As mentioned in the title of the blog post, the results were impressive. For a large company that no doubt had already spent time improving these newsletters, they were able to increase the click-through rate generated from the emails by 21%. And this came by subtracting, not adding more links within the email. The new design also decreased unsubscribes by 60%, which the marketers interpreted as a big thumbs-up from their subscriber base.

Overall, the results of this test underscore the value and potential impact of striving to have a 1:1 conversation in our marketing campaigns.

What does this mean to you?

Ideally, you would have as much information as this company had about their customers, and if it were a perfect world, you would have unlimited technical development capabilities at your fingertips. Well, most of us don’t live in that perfect scenario and creating a true 1:1 marketing campaign like this company might seem a bit out of grasp.

Here’s the good news, 1:1 marketing has a path leading to it and everyone is somewhere on that path. And every marketer, regardless of company size, can improve the conversation they are having with their customers. Today on our web clinic, we will look at the strategic things that marketers of any level can do to improve their 1:1 marketing campaigns. So join us today as we talk about this case study and more during our free web clinic: 1-to-1 Marketing at Four Levels: Strategic ways every marketer can enter into an online conversation with customers

Note: To give credit where it is due, I’d like to point out again that the case study mentioned in this post came from the research library of of Thindata 1:1. Thindata 1:1 is a training partner of ours that provides one-to-one marketing automation solutions. They have done some interesting research in the area of one-to-one marketing and I would encourage you to check them out at www.thindata.com.

 This Just Tested: How 1:1 marketing achieved 21% more clicks and 60% less unsubscribes

Marketing Symbiosis: How your peers combine traditional marketing with social media, Facebook, blogs, and the rest of the digital world

If you’ve flipped through your favorite print magazine lately, you might have seen an ad for a product you’ve never seen advertised to consumers before – magazines. In fact, magazines now even have their own tagline – The Power of Print.

At the same time, the publishing industry is falling all over itself to promote the supremacy and fresh capabilities possible with every new digital distribution tool (Heart is even looking at buying digital-marketing firm iCrossing). It is quite a post-modern experience for my print version of The Wall Street Journal to try to sell me on reading that issue on the iPad instead.magazines Marketing Symbiosis: How your peers combine traditional marketing with social media, Facebook, blogs, and the rest of the digital world

The way the publishing industry has reacted to the digital world is akin to your wife trumpeting how wonderful your marriage has been at the same time she suggests you would have been much happier with her sister.

I kid because I love

I kid the publishing industry because I love it so much. In my job, I read every publication I can get my hands on, and savor the knowledge awaiting me in every bound issue that arrives in my mailbox.

But I’m also picking on the publishers because I don’t want to turn that harsh spotlight on myself and my fellow marketers. Truth be told, while all these digital developments are exciting and spark the creativity inherent in marketers, they’re also a little scary.

And while there are sublime examples of marketers combining the traditional with the 2.0, many marketers are losing money by not putting the puzzle pieces together correctly.

On our free April 28th web clinic – Integrate Your Marketing: How one company combined offline and online marketing to increase subscriptions by 124% – we’ll share the latest discoveries to help you do just that. In the meantime, here is a look at how your peers are making the connection…

Start with the problem

For too long marketing budgets have been set and then an arbitrary percentage, say 10%, went to online without a true understanding of its impact. My firm, WCM, no longer differentiates between traditional and online because the separation is not necessary and new tools are constantly being developed. Online is mainstream.

Moving forward: Start with the business problem. Then make a list of the techniques you can use to solve that problem with marketing. Prioritize the list and diagram the best course of action. See where the connections lead – I suspect traditional is driving interaction through online channels.

Example: For a hospital network, we are creating pre-scheduled, topic-specific discussions on Facebook. (Most companies still use Facebook as a broad discussion board). By using traditional marketing (TV, radio, posters), we will drive patients and caregivers to the daily discussion and grow the loyal and active fan base. Monday is a discussion on nutrition and diets for those combating cancer, Tuesday is all about fashion tips (“looking beautiful when your hair is gone”) etc.

Marketing tool selection should be based on how you want to interact with your audience, but more importantly, how they prefer to be communicated with. For example, those struggling with cancer generally crave interaction with people. Social media makes it happen.

Rick McKenna, President of Wallwork Curry McKenna

The hub or the mirror

There are a thousand different techniques used to integrate online and offline marketing. For a lot of companies, the website is the “hub” that all other marketing efforts connect with. And if the website is not a “hub” then it works as a “mirror” to reflect what other channels are promoting.

With that in mind, online and offline marketing work best in tandem. And they work best when there is a common strategy with outlined goals and pre-defined benchmarks for evaluation.

Here are some obvious techniques:

  • Developing a plan for accounting for untrackable web sales (it’s going to happen)
  • Making sure a website’s URL can be used as a response mechanism
  • Including the URL in all marketing efforts (if it fits strategy)
  • Allow the website to “enhance” the content or messaging of your offline efforts
  • Other than the URL, make sure your site can be found; using keywords in offline marketing that are mirrored through paid and organic search

In the end, your customers do not necessarily care about the techniques used, only that their ease of shopping or ordering or learning, etc. is as seamless and unobtrusive as possible.

John Kennerty, Director of Marketing at Sinclair Institute

Communication and eliminating silos

You must first align your goals, objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) around one strategy and then speak the same voice across all channels. The communication internally and externally must mesh and meet the customer’s expectations in each channel.

Beyond this, cross promotion and teasers are great. Examples:

  • In your catalog, place the copy of a hot blog, but only put the first couple of lines and refer to the blog. Or have a fun fact and point people online to learn more.
  • Make your homepage either match any direct mail or retail pieces that are active or at least have a space for it.
  • Have a virtual catalog online and/or a virtual showroom.
  • Have your email messages, direct mail, direct response television (DRTV) or other advertising hit at the same time with the same message. Make sure your promotions/discounts are available through any ordering method.

There are many other examples and ideas, but at the core you must stay true to your brand and message in all channels.

– Steve A. Cates, VP of Multichannel Marketing at Carrot-Top Industries

A detailed method

Here is a strategy we tested that has worked successfully for us since 1999. We used it for over 30 Fortune 500 clients, mostly publishers. Word of warning: excellent technology will not take a bad campaign and make it good. However, if you have an otherwise excellent effort, it’s worth adding powerful technology behind it. Passing some of Marketing Experiments’ exams would truly help you understand the power of this method.

Overview:

1. A direct mail piece goes out with a common URL and a unique login ID for each recipient.

2. There is an incentive and a deadline to encourage recipients to log in.

3. When they do, the campaign owner will be notified.

4. Additional enhancements (leads delivered by email, SMS, stored and exported to delimited or mainframe formats), are all possible to add value to your client (if you are an agency).

A brief non-technical explanation:

Direct mail list (database if you will) gets an additional field, let’s call it UniqueID. This number can track each individual as well as campaign constants (campaign ID, incentive used, etc).

The recipient is offered an attractive incentive in the mail piece to log in with their unique ID (raise motivation).

When a login occurs, the campaign owner is notified. If a form must be completed, the information we already have about recipient can be conveniently pre-populated (reduced friction).

Notice how even if they DO NOT proceed to claim your offer (but just log in) you are still notified, giving you the ability to identify “warm leads.”

If the user is supposed to complete a form, this can be pre-populated with variables which display values from the same database used for the mailing. When they log in, the form they are supposed to use for ordering is already filled out (they can correct any mistakes / update info and continue).

Some marketers make intentional mistakes, to “push a button” in people to correct a misspelling (and in the process subscribe to something they offered).

Simply having the technology (your prospect receives a mail piece that allows them to log in to claim a desirable bonus) puts the merchant in a better light (reduced anxiety).

If the campaign is an email, the login step can be eliminated. Clients can click and land directly on a pre-populated form or personalized welcome / landing page.

This is something I’ve done for a decade and I can elaborate at length, if anyone is interested in the technical details.

– Dan Banici, Business Analyst at Incentive Server

Win a free ticket

Are your worlds colliding? Or are you a smooth operator at making the digital and the analog flow seamlessly together? Let us know how you integrate traditional and digital marketing in the comments section. Our favorite comment will win a free ticket to the 2010 Online Marketing ROI Tour.

UPDATE: Congratulations to Paul Pacun, winner of a free ticket to the 2010 Online Marketing ROI Tour.

Related Resources

Integrate Your Marketing: How one company combined offline and online marketing to increase subscriptions by 124%

Press Releases — How we tested the impact of press releases on website traffic and inbound links, and found that effective PR can deliver an ROI superior to PPC advertising

Are video clips medium-agnostic?

 Marketing Symbiosis: How your peers combine traditional marketing with social media, Facebook, blogs, and the rest of the digital world

Antisocial Media: Social media marketing success does not lie in you

“…I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!” – Sally Field

Social media just makes us all feel so darn good, doesn’t it? I mean, look at me, my name and picture is right there in the upper left. Back in my advertising days, I had ads run in The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, but no one would ever know, since my name wasn’t attached.

And I’ve got followers on Twitter. And LinkedIn. And…

Sorry, did I just become an egoblogger?

On second thought…don’t look at me

3133347219 4c16658dd5 300x252 Antisocial Media: Social media marketing success does not lie in youThis is why most social media marketing is so, well, outright bad. To go back to that study by Pear Analytics, 40% of tweets are “pointless babble.”

In a discussion last week with Pamela Markey, our Director of Marketing, she came up with the perfect phrase to describe this phenomenon – antisocial media.

Social is defined as “relating to human society and its members.” But, how many social media marketing practitioners are really relating to anything beyond what they are trying to promote?

Automatic for the people

To make matters worse, there are social media “experts” who sell products that offer to automate social media promotion and marketing.

One product I came across allows you to auto follow targeted Twitter profiles, rapidly increase niche Twitter followers, have unlimited Twitter profiles, automate direct messages, and, consequently, spend time on other tasks while the program works for you.

Feature rich but concept poor. This begs the question, what’s the point? (And the second question, can any software automate blog writing so I can spend time on other tasks? Where is HemingwayBlogger v3.0)?

So, what is the point then?

The point of social media is to give the people what they want, which is not necessarily what you want to tell them. That’s why social media marketing success does not lie in you, it lies in them.

Now I am not a social media marketing “expert” (which seems to be defined by having a five-figure following on Twitter), but there are certain discoveries we’ve made at MarketingExperiments that should logically work with these new platforms. Namely, the most important factor to conversion is motivation.

Let me take two real-world examples to show you what I mean.

Not only is Bill Gates richer than you, after only two months on Twitter, he already has more followers – 601,109. Then there’s That Guy (name changed to protect his anonymity). We were first tipped off to That Guy by a comment on this blog. That Guy has 84,466 followers.

Both pretty impressive. Now let’s look at another column on Twitter – “following.” Bill Gates is following 44 people. That Guy – 91,349. So how do you think That Guy got so many followers? Not only did he auto follow his way to “expertise,” he is trying to use that number of followers as a proof point for why you should buy his social media product.

Don’t be That Guy

In stark contrast, how did Bill Gates get so many followers? People likely want to hear what he has to say.

Of course, if you’re not a world-famous tech billionaire and philanthropist, people are likely less motivated to listen to you. But the same principle applies. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes. What can you tell them through social media that they’ll actually care about? How do they connect with your brand?

For example, I rarely tweet anything that’s not marketing related, but for a free Pearl Jam song I gladly added my 140 characters to the Twitterverse. Pamela is happy when she receives a 30% off coupon from J. Crew. And at MarketingExperiments we try to create valuable, free content that helps you do your job better.

My point is, there is no one right answer for how to use social media to tap into your audience’s motivations, but there is an answer for your brand.

And unless you tap into that motivation with your social media efforts, you’re just wasting your most valuable resource – time – while stroking your own ego at the huge “following” you have.

Am I right? Am I wrong? We’re listening. Use the Topsy button at the top of this post to tweet your opinion or leave a comment on this blog.

 Antisocial Media: Social media marketing success does not lie in you

Twitter and Social Media: Pointless babble or pot of gold?

If you’ve spent any time on Twitter, it will probably not shock you to learn that about 40% of tweets are “pointless babble,” according to Pear Analytics. In fact, in their recent study, they rated only 8.7% as having “pass-along value” – the gold standard for true viral marketing.

“I feel like eating Cheetos with my grilled cheese & turkey sandwich, but I have none icon sad Twitter and Social Media: Pointless babble or pot of gold?

– Random Twitterer

This presents a huge challenge to the modern marketer. We all see social media and the real-time web as a pot of gold at the end of the proverbial rainbow. But with these new media awash in so much “pointless babble,” finding success with social media marketing is akin to trying to find that rainbow against a psychedelic sky of endlessly flashing colors.

So before our next free web clinic – Social Media Marketing in 4 Steps: A methodology to move from sporadic to strategic use based on research with 2,317 marketers – on which MarketingSherpa Research Director Sergio Balegno will share actionable insights from research on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogging, we thought we’d post this simple (and simply blunt) question to marketers:

How do you use social media to make money?

From the obvious (”cultivate relationships”) to the iconoclastic (”you don’t”), marketers had many interesting takes on this question (what else would you expect from a group that has to think out of the box for a living?). Here are our favorite tips, techniques and insights:

Win real fans
I have a brand called Mocks (socks for mobile phones) which I started to heavily promote on Facebook last year. Basically, over three months I gained 12000 fans and doubled online sales.

I use social media as a way to increase brand awareness and engage customers so that they become fans in the “old” sense of the word. This then means that they buy more and tell their friends.

– Lara Solomon, CEO of Mocks

New way of thinking for a direct response pro
We have really embraced social media in the past year to raise our profile in our own industry (medical marketing). Until recently, because we come from direct response backgrounds, we focused all of our marketing efforts solely on targeted prospects, with little regard for the larger industry.

Our strategy has been to leverage the publication-quality content we were already producing for magazines and our newsletter base. Therefore, we are getting a lot of bang for little additional effort, leading to more and better client inquiries.

Long-term relationships over short-term profits
Social networking isn’t always about an instantaneous transformation into dollars. It is about a long-term continuous relationship with the customer. You stay on their mind even when they aren’t actively seeking your product.

– Timothy Bonnar, Marketing Coordinator at King’s Transfer Van Lines

Virtual Tupperware party
2420460207 19cf90b797 300x199 Twitter and Social Media: Pointless babble or pot of gold?Direct selling on a social network is difficult. The best way to sell is to replicate the offline world to a certain extent by signing up online agents. The same people who would host a cosmetics party or a Tupperware party are natural networkers who will have large social networks on all of the primary platforms.

The possibility exists to build a platform that they can invite their friends to at specific times and, in effect, host online sales parties. Obvious inducements include discounts on branded goods and free prizes, but the key may be to create a uniform space for the agents that they can build into a profile for themselves.

Even without a platform, they could simply become discount agents for their friends. Somebody who all their friends know can get good deals on specific products or services.

For the agent, it is not abusing their relationships on the social network platforms. For the most part, their friends already know them as somebody who hosts sales parties and they will either be ignored or valued but are unlikely to be criticized for the entrepreneurial efforts among their friends.

– Stephen Cudd, Digital Strategy Consultant

A straightforward sale
E-commerce websites (especially B2C) are the ones who can reap maximum benefits out of social media. The best examples are Dell and Zappos. Dell has reportedly made $3.5 million in 2009 from Twitter promotions.

These retailers post updates about various product offers in Twitter, Facebook and other social media. And they also give additional promotions to followers. Timely promotions to a well-targeted market segment will spur an increase in conversion rates and hence an increase in revenue.

One emerging trend is Facebook and Twitter commerce. Retailers are trying to build applications around Facebook and Twitter to port their entire commerce platform.

Arvind Muthukrishnan, Manager of Business Development at UST Global

Find out what customers want
By gaining a relationship or connecting with your customers and getting feedback, you can take the ideas they offer and put them into practice. For small businesses this is easier because most changes will be simple and not too costly. Larger business might need to run suggestions through a spreadsheet to find the most popular ideas before taking action.

Also, by doing this you pull in your customers and let them know they are being heard and that you’re really looking to make them happy. A great example of this type of mentality is Domino’s. They listened and then took action.

– Grant Gaither, President/Creative Director of Owen Graffix

Track lead generation
When it comes to quantifying social media and social networking efforts into an actual dollar value, the best way I’ve discovered is to use a simple tracking system. This consists of a spreadsheet and/or entry into my CRM that shows: lead to customer and what channel they came through, whether this be blog, social network (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn), or referral.

Mark Mathson, Director of Keenpath

Present real value
Social media must be presented as a value proposition. It’s got nothing to do with befriending people and tweeting, but everything to do with brand value and lead generation.

– Matt Chandler, Internet Marketing Consultant at WSI

Lead generation
If you are currently advertising for customers, you can now “advertise” for FREE by posting a sample, giveaway, or contest on Twitter and linking to your website. Ask for pertinent details that are important to qualifying your potential customers…and drive them to your site.

Linda Frakes, Chief Connectivity Protagonist at What the Heck is Social Media?

Social media is about awareness, not revenue
We use it to drive business and increase our profile, nothing more. But do we make money from it? No, we make the money from the services that we provide to our clients. Our social media strategy could be the best in the world but if we cannot deliver then it is pointless. So yes, it drives traffic, increases awareness, and generates leads, but it does not make money.

Patrick Murphy, Director at SiliconCloud.com

As we confront this brave new world, let’s remember that there is nothing particularly new about it…

Personally, social media has been around forever. We have always had teenage hangouts, chambers of commerce, the restaurant breakfast/coffee club, the local newspaper and specialized magazines. The difference today is that our social media has more two-way interaction, is worldwide, and can be instant.

– Georgenne Eggleston, custom market researcher

Social media is not a novel concept, we’ve just thrown a bunch of technology into the mix. And there are great benefits – speed, cost, and reach among them. But don’t get so caught up in the technology that you overlook what is really transpiring – a conversation.

Because, in the end, people don’t buy from social media platforms (or websites or email messages or even companies) – people buy from people.

 Twitter and Social Media: Pointless babble or pot of gold?

The Five Best Ways to Optimize Email Response (Part 2): How to craft effective email messages that drive customers to action

Do you shout, brag, or sell in the typical conversations you have in an average day?

If you’re not a professional wrestler, you will likely answer “no” to the above question. Yet, as Dr. Flint McGlaughlin showed in our live web clinic on February 3, many marketing email messages fall into the above traps because they don’t think of email marketing as just a conversation…

And like any good conversation, a few elements are key – clarity, proper timing, a common language, and a focus on how the person you’re talking to hears what you’re saying. Combine these elements with a methodology that allows you to optimize each part in a real-world, feedback-intensive setting, and you’ve mastered the basics of email marketing.

And do it all in a radically honest way – talk to your customers like a person, not like the typical marketer. In the end, being direct is the best way to earn the trust of a skeptical customer.

Dr. McGlaughlin ended this web clinic with live optimization of audience-submitted email messages. This last segment was so popular that we’ve decided to add a part three to our series on email response optimization that focuses exclusively on live optimization.

Dr. McGlaughlin will next be teaching live during a free webinar with our sister company InTouch – Online Lead Generation: How to optimize forms to convert “window shoppers” into leads – on Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 2pm EST.

 The Five Best Ways to Optimize Email Response (Part 2): How to craft effective email messages that drive customers to action

Do call us, we won’t call you: How to decide whether to emphasize your phone number

You get home from a long day in your marketing department or agency. Whip up a quick dinner. And just when you’re about to bite into your arroz con pollo, you hear that dreaded ring.

I call this situation Dan’s Lament. Our associate editor, Daniel Burstein, was sounding off to me about this situation earlier today. For some reason, at least in his household, they only get one type of phone call around 7pm and that, of course, is the dreaded telemarketer.

Now telemarketing is illegal at some level in the United States, as it is in many other countries, and Dan is on the National Do Not Call Registry. Yet there are those loopholes that ensure his phone still rings at dinnertime. In the latest case, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wanted to discuss his fishing habits.

Surveys. Non-profits. Or my personal favorite…political push polls. They all have found a loophole.

The more you segment, the less you blindly dial for dollars

2991001695 eb40ea8b8c 202x300 Do call us, we won’t call you: How to decide whether to emphasize your phone numberI’ve really grown to hate telemarketers. Not so much because they prevent foodie friends of mine like Dan from enjoying a good winter vegetable salad with fresh, in-season kale, but rather as a professional marketer.

The technology and science behind segmentation have helped marketers target their message so much better than before, so I feel professionally insulted that someone would think they can, precisely at the dreaded 7pm, offer sandwich-toting Dan something he didn’t already think about buying in a store or online.

So I am a fan of do-not-call registries…even if they are only marginally effective.

Now I know what many of you may be thinking. “Wait a minute, Boris, I don’t mean to interrupt Dan’s enjoyment of a hearty winter vegetable salad or pastrami on rye, but these lists are a major challenge for me…I need to leverage the human touch for an upsell or to nurture a complex sale.”

The reality is that cultural and corresponding regulatory changes have led to a certain shift in the utilization of call centers, from making to taking calls. It’s not bad news. It’s great news for you savvy marketers that have the resources to leverage a call center, if you know how to do it profitably.

Is automation right for you?

If you are a Web marketer reading this, you might be asking yourself “what does this have to do with me?” However, looking at marketing holistically may be precisely where you can maximize return on your marketing dollars, as the automation afforded by the digital medium is not a one-size-fits-all solution to all sales processes.

Yes, it’s cheaper to sell online. Yet you may be doing a better job of selling and cross-selling over the phone, even though it costs you more. The question is where the higher net profit lies.

As the resident KPI (that’s key performance indicator) Guy at MarketingExperiments, among other things, I want to reintroduce you to a KPI that is critical to inbound marketing. It is the same KPI what would have been applied to a telemarketing campaign just a few short years ago: cost per acquisition (CPA).

The obvious use of this metric is to understand how much you can afford to spend on a media buy. You may be more familiar with this metric in the demand generation realms (paid search, affiliate marketing, lead gen, etc.). However, in conjunction with a bottom-line metric, such as revenue (preferably, lifetime) per visitor (RPV), it can also provide you with critical insights for directing your marketing efforts and formulating your messaging.

Even though your site can now do many things that have replaced telemarketing – from further qualifying a lead to completing an order to even getting that upsell – don’t let technology guide your decisions. Depending on the nature of your product, the human touch can be so much more effective for any or all of these steps.

So the best thing to do is… wait for it… test!

By varying the emphasis you place on calls to action that lead to a human interaction (phone number, live chat, call-me form), both in the layout of your pages (location, graphical weighting) and their prominence in the order process (from focusing the option as the primary action to not even mentioning it).

Experimenting with live chat is its own subject, as you can test how quickly (if at all) you want to turn the online chat into a phone conversation. You might even test a click-to-call button, although be wary of spam (and if you market in India, strict regulations).

What you’re trying to discover is whether the increased cost of acquiring a customer is offset or surpassed by an increase in closed orders, upsells, or higher-quality leads (e.g., for a complex sale, how does the increase in calls help your lead management efforts).

In other words, you will need to compare the change in CPA to the change in RPV (and depending on the nature of your business, both may need to be adjusted for the customer’s projected lifetime cost and value).

You have to be careful with how you juggle the numbers, as there are many potential pitfalls. Remember that your ultimate goal is increased profits. Depending on your business plan, your primary or close secondary goal is likely increased profits in the foreseeable future or over the customer’s lifetime. If adding human interaction results in sufficiently higher revenue per website visitor, it may be worth the extra cost.

But you’ll only know if you test. And use the right KPI.

How do you use inbound marketing, telesales, and customer service? What KPIs do you use to measure your success? Share your triumphs and ideas in the comments section of this post or start a conversation with your peers in the MarketingExperiments Optimization group.

 Do call us, we won’t call you: How to decide whether to emphasize your phone number

2010 Internet Marketing Predictions From Your Peers: Twitter will lick its wounds, think beyond the desktop Web, scent marketing, and more

Predictions, especially technology predictions, are fraught with peril.

From…”Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further developments,” by Roman engineer Julius Sextus Frontinus in 10 A.D. to… “Next Christmas the iPod will be dead, finished, gone, kaput,” by British entrepreneur Sir Alan Sugar, in 2005, we humans find it notoriously difficult to gaze into that crystal ball and discover what lies just over the hill.

226px Poster of Alexander Crystal Seer 2010 Internet Marketing Predictions From Your Peers: Twitter will lick its wounds, think beyond the desktop Web, scent marketing, and moreYet so many of you took our challenge, stuck your flag up on that mountain, and tried to peer into a place no one has yet ventured into…the future.

In a way, it makes sense. As Internet marketers, you stake your career on a constantly evolving technology that shapes the way we live as we shape it. Every day in the office, you build the metaphorical airplane not only while it is in flight, but with parts that have never been used before.

So as a new decade dawns, take a moment to contemplate how you will leverage this awesome technology that has humbled so many a great thinker and how you can make your web site smarter.

And then take a look at what your peers had to say. They certainly didn’t make it easy to choose, but here they are…in no particular order…our 10 favorite Internet marketing predictions for 2010 as submitted by the MarketingExperiments community…

Integrated digital campaigns

“Last year was marked by the extensive use of social media and viral videos and the trend will definitely continue, but since these domains will soon get saturated with only the most creative and radically different initiatives managing to garner the audience’s attention, companies will finally realize that using social media and viral videos just for the sake of using them will never work. This year will probably be the time for integrated digital campaigns; campaigns that make sense to the brand and the target.

Also, when it comes to emerging nations (and especially India), I hope marketing professionals will introduce more and more mobile-based applications to leverage the tremendous opportunities that such a mobile-savvy population presents.”

    Gauri Nawathe, Assistant Advertising Project Manager at BNP Paribas

It’s all about local

Social CRM (customer relationship management) is not a word that’s quite on the mainstream radar yet, but one I believe will in some form or another show up more and more in 2010. A lot of local businesses I talk to struggle with understanding how they should use social media to drive more business, and more importantly have overlooked how it can tap into the clientele they already have. Promoting your business to people you already have a relationship with is easier than ever, and new tools and methodologies will help business owners take advantage of that fact.

    – Phillip Rather, Manager Director at PandaMedia and CEO of HomePros

Think beyond the desktop Web

“We saw 2009 as the year that most companies tried out social media as a platform where they can connect to costumers. We saw a lot of experimentations, ‘one offs’ and small tactics in the past year (e.g. online promotions, short-term gimmicks, etc.). I’m seeing 2010 as the year when most companies will start to integrate social media in their overall marketing strategy with a more long-term objective.

Also, I’m seeing 2010 as year when we’ll see more convergence of the mobile and online platforms. More companies will now think beyond the desktop Web and put more effort on the mobile Web. They’ll start to focus on how they can create a seamless Web experience (from desktop to mobile or vice-versa) to their customers.”

    – Paulo del Puerto, Digital Projects Head at ABS-CBN Interactiv

All linked. All cohesive All unified.

“Leading up to 2010, we were introduced to many different platforms and strategies for marketing. I’d like to think that – instead of talking about SEO or banner ads – we are talking about more unified and coordinated marketing strategies. Social media integrated with highly usable web designs, leveraging rich mobile, meshed with SEO and paid click – all tracked and managed in a unified manner.

And perhaps a resurgence of offline marketing in coordination – like direct mail pieces and other media. All linked. All cohesive. All unified. Maybe this is the true Web 2.0?”

    Stephen Harris, Founder/Managing Director at Cross Sea Strategy Advisors

The lost art of creative, targeted direct mail

“I think that as more and more people are going to the Web people will become more de-sensitized to this type of medium. Therefore, a well-crafted, dimensional direct mail package will get opened because the lost art of creative, targeted direct mail will have a big impact.”

    Derek Miller, Owner, ProPrinters

Small businesses can drive a huge impact

“I believe 2010 will be the year that local business will be able to succeed online. In the past if you were a restaurant, hotel, or doctor’s office in a small market, it just simply was not worth your time to be
interested in anything beyond a website. Now, with Google displaying the map before the normal search results for local queries, the opportunity for you to ask one hundred of your friends on Facebook what they would recommend, and the power of review sites, small businesses can drive a huge impact to their bottom line just by being involved in the conversation.”

Mobile marketing and local listings

“Mobile marketing is the next major step in the digital space. In the past year, the mobile application industry has grown exponentially and given the consumer the power of finding information at their finger tips while they are on the road and around town.

Now web-based local listing services (there are over 20 of them from Google to Yahoo to Bing to Ask to Yelp, etc.) are pushing local business listing information to these devices.

Businesses can use QR Codes for their coupons. They can get their products and services onto the local listings that include photos, videos, coupons, offers, discounts, and promotions. This will effectively take the traditional Yellow Pages out of the picture once and for all. Keep in mind that this is not only for the local small business, but for any business – large franchises, restaurants, banks, drug stores, hardware stores, electronic stores, etc.”

Twitter will lick its wounds…

“…wondering why it didn’t capitalize on a spectacular 2009. It will still be unprofitable. More companies will embrace social media, especially big companies. The big companies will still be behind the curve but their money and sheer size will make them players and influence the direction that social media takes, especially in the B2B world.”

Scent Marketing

“I predict impressive brand scent campaigns within 10 to 14 months for Canada. Europe, specifically London, has already gained strength and Spain is not far behind. The USA will join in within 16 to 18 months and will push the trends. Watch and smell, people! Social media may be considered strong but you never forget a smell. The impression of social media lasts less than a second or until the next blog shows up.”

If your small business doesn’t rank…

“Use of Geolocation means that in 2010 small businesses can no longer rely on the Yellow Pages to generate traffic to their businesses.

Already, the Yellow Pages has been relocated to a closet corner (at best) or the recycle bin (more likely), and has been replaced by local search. This trend will continue, and the increased use of smart phones will make local search results even more important in 2010.

Already, when driving through town, I can pop open Google Maps on my Blackberry, hold the talk button, and ask for a list of service providers. Maps tags my location via GPS and feeds me results. If your small business doesn’t rank… then you’ll be missing out on a lot of traffic.”

As you build that plane in flight, we’ll be here for you – studying this morphing machine called Internet marketing to continually discover what really works so you don’t have to fly blind. Use your own tests, combined with our experiments, to take advantage of real-world data and proven principles to help guide your online marketing efforts. Because, as computer scientist Alan Kay has said, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”

We’re currently accepting input for our next community-written blog post. What is your favorite source of news and information in the advertising and marketing industry? Not a blog or magazine you just like…but something you really love enough to send a virtual Valentine to on this upcoming (and well-marketed) holiday.

Email or share your feedback in the MarketingExperiments Optimization group and we’ll publish our favorites in a future post right here on the blog. And like a good marketer…be a little creative.

 2010 Internet Marketing Predictions From Your Peers: Twitter will lick its wounds, think beyond the desktop Web, scent marketing, and more