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pug looking at his emails in awe

We all know the internet is a wildly interactive and creative place. This is a bit of a double edged sword for marketers.

This interconnectedness allows you to deliver content in different many ways: social media, blogging, video, audio, and a host of other interactive platforms. Plus, let’s not forget email.

On the flip side, it allows all of your competition to do so as well. So you need to make sure your content and emails rise above the noise.

Email marketing is very much alive. It has withstood the test of time and remains a strong force to contend with in lead generation and management, as well as customer engagement. In fact, based on statistics from Oberlo:

  • By 2025, there is expected to be 4.6 billion email users. That’s more than half the population!
  • More than 330 billion emails are sent and received each day.
  • For every $1 spent on email marketing, you can expect a $42 ROI.
  • 90% of marketers use email marketing as part of their marketing strategies.
  • 81% of SMB’s rely on email marketing as their primary customer acquisition strategy.
  • Emails with personalized subject lines have 50% higher open rates.
  • Adding videos to your emails can increase open rates by 300%

This is your sign not to scale down your email marketing efforts. Its relevance in the modern online landscape is undeniable! You just have to figure out how to be better than everyone else. It’s not exactly as hard as it sounds. Read on for applicable tips and tricks to take home to your boss and increase your CTR.

Key takeaways:

  • Personalize your emails as often as possible through segmentation paired with well-tailored content
  • Automation is the key to optimizing your time and effort in marketing
  • Send emails that resonate with your customers by focusing on content that educates, connects or improves their job

Personalized Email Marketing

No one appreciates generic or template-style emails, that’s for sure. People want to feel like more than just another sale to your company. To stand out from all the inbox clutter from other brands, you need to get personal to attract and retain your customers.

If you want your prospects to take notice of your message, you need to do so much more than just push your content. Personalizing your emails means you know your subscribers well enough to know what they’re looking for. Be ready to give it to them at the right time and via the right channel.

Here are some ways to maximize your personalized email strategies:

Practice Segmentation in Your Email Marketing

Email segmentation means grouping your leads by their browsing activity, demographic information, and purchase history. This data can then be used to customize your email, making them more relevant to a specific group of contacts.

When you segment your email list, you can draw different conclusions by observing leads activity in each category. This information can help influence each of your different customer personas.  Your next move should then be to provide relevant content that’s valuable to each persona group.

different triggers to have in place for marketing automation

Image Source: GetResponse

You can segment your emails a few different ways. Send content specific emails by observing what section each lead views on your website. If you sell baked goods and they visit your cupcake page, you might want to send them content specific emails about your amazing cupcake services. Say they watched a video advertising your baking class. You’d focus on sending them more information about the class and its enrollment options.

Another useful idea to help tailor your emails is to use your customers’ time and location information. Have you ever noticed how emails arrive in your inbox usually at 9 or 10ish in the morning? Businesses have identified it as the best time to send out marketing emails. (P.S. think outside of the box and try sending your emails at a time other than a rounded hour, like 8:19 or 9:42.)

It goes without saying that the content should cater to what those prospects are looking for right then and there, which brings us to the next element in email marketing personalization.

Offer Well-Tailored Content

Creative content that’s both relevant and effective is one of marketers biggest challenges, but you’re already a step closer once you segment your email list. Now it’s time to create content specific to each group.

Your next best step is to ask as many questions as you can. Asking the right questions can give you good insights as to what your customers’ priorities are.

One of the most important questions to ask is why a particular customer visited your website.

If you’re an event organizer, and a lead checks out your “Party” page, they’re probably interested in getting you to organize their party for them. But there are a number of other questions you should be asking to get a more holistic understanding of their needs.

If it’s an anniversary party, for instance, you might want to know if it’s anything near the most cherished milestones like a silver or golden anniversary. You could use the answer to send out a targeted email with details about suggested themes or motifs that are most appropriate for the occasion.

Second, you can use personalized emails to direct your customers to a landing page on your website, which should have the same look and copy as your email, including CTAs. The idea is to identify your customer segments, write custom emails for each segment, and develop several landing pages for that particular segment. With this strategy, your leads will be able to recognize that you are giving them an integrated, personalized email experience and may feel more encouraged to convert as customers.

Automate Your Email Marketing

Nowadays as a marketer you’re expected to generate, nurture and manage leads simultaneously. This is where email marketing automation tools can help.

Such tools are not only meant to make things easier for you, but you’ll be amazed at how they can scale things up in the personalized email department as well. The segmentation we spoke of earlier is built into many automation tools to help make even that optimization easier to accomplish.

Automation can help you take steps never thought possible before. If you’re an online shopping addict (like me) you know about abandoned cart messages. Say you sell jewelry. Your customer adds a few earring options to their cart but eventually leaves the page. They either forgot or decided against their purchase. But with email automation, you can send that customer a reminder of their cart, and even a discount code to hook them back in.

pie chart showing that companies can increase purchases by 69% with 3 abandoned cart emails

Image Source: Oberlo

These trigger emails can be used for various purposes: as a welcome greeting, for up-selling or cross-selling pitches, or to send updates about your subscriber’s account.

Implement Marketing Automation

Marketers don’t have a million hours in the day to do everything they need to successfully generate business. Marketing automation is both a challenge and an essential part of a modern business. Through marketing automation, you can sift through a huge amount of data to get to know your customers better and to use that understanding to deliver useful marketing content to them.

A map of what marketing automation entails from web activity to reporting

Image Source: Medium 

Automation is marketing technology in action. It enables you to track the digital footprints of your leads, turn those interactions into insights about the customers’ sales journey, and help you craft better content to drive prospects towards a purchase decision.

However, automated marketing does not come without its challenges. Here are some of the major obstacles facing marketers and their brands:

  • Marketing automation isn’t a cure-all. It requires proper buy-in from various stakeholders including the sales and marketing departments. Marketers need to know their automation objectives, what metrics to track, and how to analyze data to provide valuable insights. They also need to know which data matters most, like using behavioral data to identify target buyers and influencers to create personas and personalize content for each.
  • Marketing automation doesn’t mean hands-off marketing. You have to continuously update and test automation tools based on your observations mentioned in the above point. If you just let automation go, your messages will quickly get stale.
  • Since marketers need to determine where ROI is coming from, there is a need to establish a good CRM model or system that will identify which campaigns are effective and which are not. Marketers should have a full understanding of how the marketing automation system and the CRM system work to help them predict which leads are the most qualified.
  • Budget restrictions may be forcing companies to move automated marketing to the backburner. The best antidote here is to remember that marketing automation platforms have lead scoring capabilities that show which leads are better than others—saving marketers tons of time, effort, and resources as they focus more on prospects who are more likely to convert, therefore earning more money in the long run

The bottom line on marketing automation is that it allows you to scale processes without removing the ability to segment and personalize. If you need more inspiration, check out this video featuring 10 successful email marketing campaign examples.

Best Emails for Nurturing Leads

Email is indispensable to marketers, as it’s still one of the most convenient ways to communicate despite the presence of new other modes of messaging. Brands are generating 3800% ROI with email marketing!

However, marketing emails may be unwelcome to some because there’s plenty of clutter getting sent around and it can be a pain to filter through dozens of emails to find something relevant.

You can enhance your email campaigns by knowing which ones resonate well with customers. As a rule of thumb, the best email types are the ones that:

Educate

People care most about what serves them. If your email can teach your prospects something about their pain points, or how exactly your products or services can help your customers deal with them, you’ve got a winning marketing tool in your hands.

By crafting educational content, you are asserting your expertise and value as a brand that people can trust and depend on. It might take a lot of time and effort to sustain the distribution of this type of email, but it’s the gradual, stage-by-stage process of educating your customers and earning their trust that makes this one special.

Establish Connections

The goal of any email marketing campaign should be to open a dialogue and create meaningful conversations between a brand and its audience. The closer you can get to your customer, the more engagement you can expect in return.

Be sure to give your customers the option of choosing other possible means of connecting with you. It may be via subscription to your newsletter, connecting on social media, or alerts to product development updates. Whatever the case, let the prospect choose the channel that suits them best.

Offer Something Relevant

Sending product offers to prospects may seem like a great idea, but you need to make sure that they’re getting more than that. If someone signs up on your website, for example, it means they are ready to explore your content, so you should give them what they want.

Instead of sending them a free trial offer for your product or service, you might want to first find out what pages or topics engaged them, and then send additional content that they might find valuable. As they consume more of your content offers, you can leverage the trust that you’ve established to deliver more brand or product-centric content, driving them towards a purchase.

Help Someone Improve

As you nurture your leads, keep in mind that one of your goals is to help them improve their everyday lives. Of course, you should keep your content consistent with your brand’s theme. For example, if you sell vitamins and your target audience is mostly made up of health conscious individuals, you could create content about how specific vitamins reduce the risk of specific diseases.

Your emails should have a similar slant that complements their goals and shows them how they can meet their objectives in a more effective manner.

Recreate Opportunities

You can’t expect things to always be rosy with your email marketing efforts. At one point or another, you will come across subscribers that aren’t responsive or those that just don’t click through.

To turn this around, you could request your subscribers to provide feedback regarding the emails you send in terms of frequency, content type, and quality, or anything about their experience with your brand or service. Whether or not you receive the feedback you were hoping to get, you’ll still be able to use these insights to address any areas of concern.

Have a Personal Appeal

This has been a prevailing theme in email marketing because knowing your customers’ preferences builds a special connection between your brand and your audience. A personal touch can be especially useful if you want to get past barriers in the sales cycle. Your customers will appreciate the extra effort you’re putting in.

Ways to inject a personal touch include checking in, saying thanks, remembering special events, and thinking ahead so that your customer doesn’t have to. One of the easiest ways to do this; birthdays! Find out a subscriber’s birthday when they sign up on your website and send a simple message to show you care.

Final Thoughts

All the signs are telling us that email will never bow out of the marketing game. People won’t stop using email as a primary communication channel, and we continue to see how it keeps growing.

On a less serious note, here are a couple of stats about when people check their inboxes (via Inc):

  • 70% of people check their email while watching TV
  • 60% of people check their email while in bed
  • 50% of people check their email while on vacation
  • 42% of people check their email while on the toilet
  • 18% of people check their email while driving (which we do not condone!)

People are checking their email everywhere! So don’t be afraid to ramp up your email marketing efforts when it comes to lead nurturing because chances are, you’ll be pretty happy with the ROI if you’re doing it right.

Is the content creation aspect of email marketing holding you back? If you need more stuff to be sending your subscribers, it might be time to ramp up your content marketing strategy as well. We’re here to help with that.

Check out our SEO blog services or schedule a free consultation with us today!

The post How to Nurture Leads with Email Marketing appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

The internet is in a constant state of flux. This often makes locking down effective digital marketing practices difficult. Trends are always changing, always evolving, leaving us marketers to pick up the pieces and figure out – what works?

Take the advent of social media for example.

Before TikTok and Instagram were providing brands with new and exciting ways to connect with the world, we were just making commercials and banner advertisements meant to hopefully be seen by our prospects. IT was like fishing for a goldfish in the ocean, hoping one swims by at the right time.

So what is next?

Enter: Web 3.0.

Web 3.0 is the next step in the structure of the internet, and in turn is the next big thing marketing professionals have to navigate to effectively boost their business’ revenue.

Gartner.com details the journey from Web 1.0 – 3.0:

Web 1.0 (a read-only web): Created in the early 1990s and allowed for only static HTML web pages that could be viewed with a browser. This phase was geared toward publishing information and making it available to as many people as possible.

Web 2.0 (a read-write web): Began in the late 1990s, focused on interactivity and collaboration. With the introduction of blogs, wikis and social media sites, web users were no longer just passive content consumers; they could now create content and share it online.

Web 3.0 (a read-write-interact web): The ongoing phase of the web is focused on interaction and collaboration between humans and machines. The web is becoming increasingly intelligent and adaptable with the advent of new technologies, including semantic web, natural language processing and machine learning. Therefore, Web 3.0 is considered to be the future of the internet.

In simpler words, artificial intelligence is playing a bigger role in the systems and interactions we see online. This is a result of the decentralized blockchain intended to make the online experience more personal and protected for the user.

Here’s a quick video from Eric Siu talking about how marketing is going to change with the advent of Web 3.0:

Quick Takeaways:

  • Web 3.0 is coming, and your company should be aware of the current trends and practices of tech giants
  • Marketing practices will be directly impacted by the change
  • The heart and sole of your marketing practices will be fostering strong communities

Increased privacy means less data

Currently, you can go to Google Trends or Facebook Suite and look up exactly who is reading your content and where they tend to congregate online. It’s an important part of sharing your content through paid advertising that we’ve grown accustomed to in the world of Web 2.0.

This data is often bought in bulk or included in your subscriptions to these services. It’s not just important to your current marketing efforts, it’s actually the backbone to them.

With Web 3.0 becoming the standard, tracing purchasing habits and online presence will become much more difficult and less reliable than it is today. Not having access to mass data will change the way we think about finding our target demographics and prospects.

New decentralized social media

More and more companies have started blockchain-based services meant to mimic ones we currently have. Things like Youtube and Facebook are already seeing new Web 3.0-centric platforms popping up. While not every one is guaranteed to be the next Myspace, it shows the importance of social media in the new age.

Because we won’t have access to purchasable mass data, the focus shifts to building your community that comes directly to you. This is done through the business side of things, by providing quality products and services that compete (and win) over the competition.

top trends in web 3.0 marketing

Source: 101 Blockchains

We will have to innovate new forms of content across all kinds of media (written, video, photo) to separate ourselves from the competition. It’s not like we’re starting from scratch though, because content that performs well won’t necessarily look entirely different from how it does now.

It will simply need to be reformatted and readjusted for the new platforms on the horizon.

As marketers, we have our current social media skills that have helped us through the present age. These skills will be transferable (slowly!) to the new way of commerce. If anything, it means our jobs are more important than ever in drawing people in and keeping them on our sites and pages.

Staying up on trends

Congrats, you’re probably already doing this part! If you’re a successful marketer or SEO writer, you already know that staying on top of the current climate is crucial to success in your endeavors. This won’t change with the structure of the internet.

Subscribing to tech journals and blockchain-based startups will keep you in the know of what’s working and what’s not. Don’t forget to keep your eye on the larger companies that have the most to lose from Web 3.0 too.

The Facebooks and Googles of the world are preparing for the oncoming storm, make sure to check out how they’re going about trying to stay on top of the game.

With the recent crypto crash there’s been lots of questions as to the direction of crypto currency and its role in Web 3.0. Find the voices in the community that have been the most correct thus far (everyone who wasn’t isn’t on top anymore) and think about how you can apply their methods and ideas to yours.

Wrap up

Deep breaths – don’t be scared! Web 3.0 is just the next challenge you’ll be tackling as a marketing professional. As we discussed, many of your skills are in fact transferable and make you as valuable as ever to your company.

By maintaining a strong brand presence and voice across old platforms and new platforms and staying informed about crypto and the blockchain, you will be more than prepared to handle what’s next. Get to planning your next steps!

Do you want to use some of the marketing strategies seen here on MIG’s site but need some help or advice? Marketing Insider Group has a team of 35+ experienced writers ready to produce content for YOUR business. Check out our weekly blog content service or schedule a free consultation.

The post Is Your Marketing Ready for Web 3.0? appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

The Internet is chock-full of B2B lead generation resources crafted by marketing experts, business owners, and other specialists.

A quick Google search can bring you to several tips, infographics, case studies and presentations that can help you improve your current B2B lead generation campaigns.

Here’s a great one from Trustmary.com showing the differences between B2B and B2C lead generation strategies:

But not all of your online searches will yield helpful results. Sorting out the great advice from the just plain bad can end up being a pretty daunting task.

Here’s a quick video from Patrick Dang talking about B2B lead generation:

Quick Takeaways:

  1. Lead generation is the backbone of your sales numbers
  2. Deciding on what metrics to measure how your lead generation is performing is crucial to overall marketing efforts
  3. There are tons of online resources designed to make lead generation easier

We’ve got your back and have compiled some of the top online resources for you to check out:

Callbox

Callbox is an award-winning sales and marketing solutions provider. Don’t believe us? Check out their stunning credentials here. They provide quick, concise, and entertaining lead generation presentations that you can’t help but share.

They also have this really neat infographic about the role of content in B2B lead generation, as well as a SlideShare presentation on why businesses should outsource their lead generation initiatives.

Impact Plus

Are you looking for some quick courses to brush up on your B2B lead generation strategies? Look no further! Impact Plus has free courses designed to teach you the ins and outs of lead generation, SEO, content marketing trends, and more!

Canva

Source: Tech Radar

Canva is a user-friendly design tool meant to be easily accessed by anyone. You can design banner ads, graphics, and more to generate leads on your website. This website lets you skip the hassle of hiring someone else to use more complicated software to craft your website’s graphics.

You can also find videos online to step up your Canva game and design like the pros!

Lead Genius

Lead Genius’ SlideShare presentation on the best practices for lead generation walks you through the outbound and inbound sales funnel. Although it may be a bit heavy on stats for a 54-slide presentation, it’s still a great resource for those who want to understand the sales funnel journey.

Kissmetrics

A Cisco study found that by 2019, 80% of all consumer internet traffic will be from internet video traffic. Kissmetrics leveraged this stat in their blog article titled ‘Using Video Metrics to Collect Better Data for Lead Generation.’ If your company is big on video content, this resource is definitely a gold mine.

We’re not just talking about professionally made videos. If your company has blogger brand ambassadors, those quick Instagram videos can also be converted into big lead generation initiatives.

Formstack

Source: Formstack

When it comes to lead generation, the motto, “If you build it, they will come” is not always true. As you might have experienced, just because you have a website in place, that doesn’t always guarantee traffic and a successful sales conversion rate.

That’s where this SlideShare presentation from Formstack comes in handy. The presentation shows how three preferential customer behaviors come into play on every page of your site.

Demand Wave

If you feel like you’ve tried every lead generation tactic in the book, this SlideShare presentation from Demand Wave offers five more untapped areas for lead generation you might want to give a crack.

On their company blog, Demand Wave also has a great article about 2016’s top trends in B2B digital marketing and SEO. This post is definitely worth a read if you want to get updated on what’s going on in the digital world.

WordStream

In recent years, there has been a boom in the startup industry. Many of these startups have become quite popular through digital marketing.

In this blog article from WordStream, startup entrepreneurs share their top lead generation strategies. Whether you’re just starting off, or you’re a veteran entrepreneur, you can learn a thing or two from these newly minted business owners.

MarketingProfs

MarketingProfs has quite a collection of available lead generation materials for business owners. In one article, marketing blogger Matt Banner, talks about ways to optimize your social media conversation and enhance activities with lead generation tactics that will drive users through the sales funnel.

Podcasts

How To Cut Your Paid Advertising in Half and Boost Revenue: Michael Brenner on Quietlight [Podcast]

In this podcast, MIG’s leader Michael Brenner talks about using content marketing to draw users to your website, ultimately slashing your advertising costs. This podcast does an excellent job of telling you specific steps of just how to go about your content marketing strategy.

The Most Effective Lead Follow-Up Strategies: Adam Bluemner on Marketing Smarts [Podcast]

In this podcast, Adam Bluemner from Find Accounting Software talks about the most effective follow-up strategies for web-based B2B lead generation from an analysis of 63,256 calls.

Based on the study, if a sales representative waits a day before calling, the contact rate goes down. Bluemner also wrote a case study on follow-up calls on the company website, which is another excellent resource for B2B companies trying to improve their sales strategies.

What Makes Buyers Tick: Dr. Carl Marci of Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience on Marketing Smarts [Podcast]

Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience’s chief neuroscientist, Dr. Carl Marci, shares insights into the customer’s decision-making process. The podcast can help you understand how your audience responds to a particular ad while they’re still watching it, or if a particular way that a product is packaged turns people away rather than inviting them in.

The biggest lesson here is that a customer’s emotions play a large role in deciding whether content is relevant or not. The secondary lesson is that B2B marketers are now capable of analyzing the effect of their marketing campaigns through a real-time collection of consumer reactions without disrupting the content consumption experience.

How B2B Brands Can Rock Social: B2B Marketing Forum Speaker Eric T. Tung on Marketing Smarts [Podcast]

BMC Software’s social media manager, Eric Tung, shares how brands can be rock stars on social media. Social media can become an efficient lead tool for brands, but it requires planning. It’s not just about posting when or what you want to.

A great piece of advice from this podcast is to empower a company’s employees to become social media ambassadors by rolling out policies within the enterprise. Getting senior executives to be active on social media, especially LinkedIn, is also a good way to generate brand awareness.

Why Millennials Ignore Your Marketing (and How to Fix That): Matt Britton on Marketing Smarts [Podcast]

Millennials are experts in tuning out marketing in conventional media, which is a big problem for brands. Marketing expert, Matt Britton, is the CEO of social media agency, MRY.

In this podcast, Britton shares tips to catch the attention of elusive but powerful Millennials. If Millennials account for a significant chunk of your target market, then this is the podcast for you.

As you can see from the listed podcasts, Marketingprofs has an incredible amount of quality audio content for lead generation professionals to learn from.

Case Studies

Xeikon

This case study is about Xeikon, an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) who used to focus on an annual trade show. The company decided to run a multi-month and multi-channel campaign to generate leads and create awareness.

The targeted marketing effort was able to achieve a 300% ROI and resulted in 140 qualified leads. That might not seem like much but for an OEM, that was an astonishing amount of new business.

ServiceMaster Solutions

This case study is about ServiceMaster Solutions, a commercial janitorial and cleaning services franchise based in Portland, Oregon. It’s one of the five biggest commercial franchises of its kind in the United States.

When the CEO realized they had exhausted their relationship-building initiatives, they decided to leverage an online direct response ‘marketing machine.’ The campaign resulted in a 9 percent conversion rate and a 150% surge in generated leads.

Maersk

Who would have thought that a shipping company could generate so many leads using social media? Danish shipping company, Maersk, turned to social media not just to increase its brand awareness but also to enhance employee satisfaction, gain market insight, and forge relationships with its customers.

They started sharing ‘inside stories’ that happen in their business such as where their staff comes from and how they are helping increase the sale of avocados from Kenya.

Since then, the shipping company has significantly increased brand awareness and grown a large social following all because of targeted content and social media marketing.

Source: Search Engine Journal

IBM

B2B marketing for software and hardware are harder than B2C. Conventional lead generation methods include email and telemarketing, but IBM decided to go a different route by launching the ‘intelligent listening’ program internally.

They ‘listened’ and investigated conversations about cloud computing on social media from users. Their sales people were given access to an RSS feed to find related content that they could then post on social media and to their internal IBM site profile pages. These efforts generated a boom in their B2B customers, showing how important it is to listen to your audience.

Inspired Marketing

Inspired Marketing is a B2B company that sells online training programs and digital materials about social networking tools such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

In 2010, the company released over 300 web seminars or webinars called GoToWebinars. The campaign resulted in more than $2.5 million in sales for 2011. In January alone, seven webinars resulted in sales of $250,000.

Wrap up

All of these online resources provide expert insights on lead generation. Success stories (case studies) can help show you particular tactics and strategies other companies have used successfully. This can direct your future efforts in a more strategic manner.

If you think you’ve exhausted your current relationship building capabilities, take a cue from some of the experts on the podcasts or leverage the cold, hard statistics available to help you craft a more effective lead generation campaign.

Better yet, your research and brainstorming might just lead you to discovering your own innovative way to generate leads. It may just be successful enough to land your business in a case study of your own!

Do you want to use some of the marketing strategies seen here on MIG’s site but need some help or advice? Marketing Insider Group has a team of 35+ experienced writers ready to produce content for YOUR business. Check out our weekly blog content service or schedule a free consultation. 

The post 20 Handy B2B Lead Generation Resources appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.