Marketing masters advanced email marketing workshop

Advanced B2B email marketing workshop

For the Masses

2011 B2B Marketing Masters Webinar Series

Online Workshop August 25, 2011

SalesFUSION’s clients have an average “active life span” of 2.5 years

About SalesFUSION

Leading SaaS marketing automation solution HQ – Atlanta, GA, offices in Philadelphia Focus on Marketing to Sales integration Operating in 11 countries MarketingUnlimited program Innovative client service model 200+ Clients, 40 Partners 90% Product dev. – customer driven High growth – 110 new clients in 2010

About the Speaker – Kevin Miller EVP Marketing Principal at SalesFUSION 18 Years of database marketing, marketing promotions

experience Developed Consumer Promotion Campaigns for Sony, Toyota,

Guinness, Discovery Channel, NASCAR, WWF, TNT Direct Marketing practitioner Built and executed over 300 Webinar Campaigns since 1999 Involved with B2B Marketing Automation since inception Former user of many email & marketing software apps–

Constant Contact, Vertical Response, Emma, MailChimp, CheetahMail, Unica, NuEdge Systems, Marketbright

Connect with me on LinkedIn or Follow on Twitter, Follow us on Facebook

Professional Marketing Philosophy: “Marketing is about results…period. Without tangible metrics to prove the efficacy of a campaign through the realization of increased revenue….we are simply throwing darts at a board and hoping for the best”

7 Deadly sins of email marketing

1. Using an email vendor that affixes “This email sent by “VENDOR NAME”

2. Call to action is sales brochure or home page3. Sending attachments or flash 4. Subject lines that include…“Viagara” or “I have unclaimed

funds in a Nigerian Bank for you “…OK just kidding5. Mass emailing your database a general message more than 3

times in a month6. Using the “OH BOY THEY OPENED IT” design philosophy

(more on this later)7. Sending blast emails from your woefully under-designed CRM

email tool – don’t8. Giving access to the email tool to sales personnel (that’s

really #7 because #4 was a joke)

Marketing automation technology combines technology and best practices from virtually all marketing disciplines and forces the end-user to become moderately fluent in all aspects of b2b marketing

About the Marketing Masters Series Focused on advanced-level b2b marketing topics Education on how to best leverage emerging marketing

technology Series based on the industry best-practices and over 200+

companies Complemented with Live, Public demonstrations of marketing

automation software technology Guest speakers/industry leaders

110% client focused

Dedicated client services

Unlimited training

Today’s Session Advanced B2B email marketing B2B email trends worth following Defining email marketing in 2011 and beyond The nature of nurture-based campaigns Back to the basics

Subject line do’s/don’ts Deliverability & CAN SPAM Working with email templates/WYSIWYG Testing, A/B, metrics Setting up trigger-based campaign Social media and email marketing Building a strong call-to-action

Integrating with CRM Q&A

In the arms race of software features, we sometimes build so far ahead of what the majority of our user community can digest at one time, we render a large portion of our solutions under-utilized

Advanced b2b email marketing Trade your bullhorn for a multi-tool Linear messaging replaced with non-linear, branched, reactive,

personalized, relevant communication Age old adage – right message, right recipient, right time Combine Trigger-based campaigns, drip-based campaigns,

branched campaigns and multi-step, multi-conditional campaigns

It’s not THAT Hard……it just requires tools and training

Email marketing challenges 2010/11 Content Getting through to a

crowed inbox Campaign ROI Building opt-in

Appliance-level SPAM filters (Postini, Barracuda…etc) will almost immediately interpret “sent by vendor” domains as Spam and will drop them in a junkmail folder

What is b2b email marketing in 2011? Rapid migration away from low-end email blast tools to

nurture-style campaigns The Constant Contact Effect = Fatigued Inbox &

Overworked Spam Filters lead to weak messages/campaigns

Focus on delivering content and value in email Multi-step campaigns designed to “Hold the Reader’s

Attention” Integrated with CRM Part of a larger communication strategy Messaging is moving away from “buy me now”….to “I want

to teach you first…and sell you when you’re ready”

Email marketers who recognize and act on the changes that have taken place in the ways their customers choose to communicate with them and with each other will be in the best position to adapt their email programs and stay relevant.

The changing nature of b2b email - 2011

1. Social Media/Network Adoption: Facebook is approaching 600 million users and Twitter 150 million. Social commerce is about to explode. Social is simply a game changer. 2. Mobile: Smartphones are expected to outsell PCs for the first time in 2011. Forrester Research is predicting tablet sales in the U.S. will overtake netbook sales by 2012, and desktop sales by 2015. Mobile is a platform, not a channel. 3. Social Inbox: Facebook, AOL and other ISPs and email clients are finally moving toward a multichannel inbox. Email's battle for consumer mindshare begins moving to the inbox itself.

Source – Email Insider

Email marketers who recognize and act on the changes that have taken place in the ways their customers choose to communicate with them and with each other will be in the best position to adapt their email programs and stay relevant.

Email Campaign TypesBulk /Broadcast email – Single, linear email with 1 message and 1 call to action sent en masse to a list or segment.

Drip – Series of pre-built emails sent on calendar dates to groups of people for a specific reason. Examples are webinar invitations and monthly newsletter. They key is “Calendar Date”

Trigger- Single email (auto-responder) sent to an individual based on the activation of some form of trigger. The send date/time is relative to the action or relative to the previous trigger email

Jupiter Research (in “The ROI of E-mail Relevance”) found that behaviorally-targeted trigger email campaigns get 30% higher open and click-through rates and three times the conversion rates of broadcast email

Some report open rates as much as 70% higher than broadcast email

Email marketers who recognize and act on the changes that have taken place in the ways their customers choose to communicate with them and with each other will be in the best position to adapt their email programs and stay relevant.

The Nature of Nurture-based campaignsNurture marketing is – a non linear sequence of communications that are initiated by your prospects through web interaction, form completion or dynamic segmentation

Key Elements of Nurture-based email

Use a combination of trigger/drip/forms/segmentation/profile Communications are highly relevant and personalized Emails are typically triggered based on some initial event or

change in profile Campaign goals

Stay top of mind Be the vendor of choice when decision time comes

Back to basics – an email marketing deep dive

Subject Lines Single biggest driver of open rates Keep short, simple and decisive 45-65 characters max Avoid obvious issues – Free, Offer, Expire – or adjectives that

are over the top (Massive, huge) Avoid Characters in subject lines *&%$@!

In the junk folder because of the subject line

Back to basics – an email marketing deep dive

Deliverability and CAN SPAM B2B deliverability is based on your ability to get through

Appliance-level filters – Postini, Barracuda…etc. Black Listing is not as applicable in B2B – more relevant for

public ISP – AOL, GMAIL….etc. “Sent on behalf of” email domain is a spam filter death

sentence Once a filter flags an ESP like this as spam….anyone hitting

that filter…even from a different company goes into spam…. This is the Constant Contact Effect

Jeff Kaplan <[email protected]>; on behalf of; Jeff Kaplan <[email protected]>

The Constant Contact Effect

ABC, Inc.

Corp

ora

te S

pam

Filter

• 1 Company uses CC

• Saturates persons at Company ABC, Inc. with email with CCS domain

• Person flags CCS domain as spam

• All other companies using Constant contact – marketing to ABC, Inc. no longer get through

Back to basics – an email marketing deep dive

What is SPAMRequirements of the CAN-SPAM Act

There must be a clear and conspicuous remove function available to the recipient for 30 days after the email was sent. This is also known as an “Opt Out” function.

Implement opt-out requests within 10 business days. Opt-outs must be communicated to all customer contact points within your company, added to your suppression lists

Provide a valid physical postal address of the sender so that potential clients or prospects can mail you their request for opting out. The law requires just a postal address.

The CAN-SPAM Act requires that you clearly “label” your email as an advertisement. This is not required for those who have already opted in to receive information from your company. This requirement is for those non-opted-in clients and for all prospect emailing campaigns.

You must use a valid sender or header information. The CAN-SPAM Act requires that both of these fields are not misleading or false in any way.

You must use valid subject information. the Subject line must reflect the intent of the e-mail message and not be misleading in any way.

Back to basics – an email marketing deep dive

Working with HTML Templates Off the shelf templates – from the

ESP vendor or 3rd-party sources. Cool vendor - http://

themeforest.net/category/marketing/email-templates

Use WYSIWYG editor to modify Note – some templates (wizard-

driven) can be very restrictive Most templates are best modified

via tables or CSS

Back to basics – an email marketing deep dive

Working with HTML Editors – for non HTML people Image sizing – know the size of the image you are replacing –

re-size your image before loading into the editor Adding new content – should be done via adding tables within

tables Get 1-4 good templates created and re-use Settle on a standard banner

Back to basics – an email marketing deep dive

Email Design basics Main image banner – top Main text/message body – left Images/call to action right Use summary/bullet points Shoot for attention span of @

25-35 seconds Think AdWords landing page

design Images on right because of

outlook preview pane

Back to basics – an email marketing deep dive

Email Design basics Email should be designed

with Outlook preview pane in mind

Unsubscribe comes through VERY nicely though???

Emails that are image heavy on left don’t look good in preview mode

Too many images may scare people into not opening

This text should have rendered in the preview pane

Back to basics – an email marketing deep dive

Back to basics – an email marketing deep dive

Testing before you send Use a quality Spam rule checking solution against your finished HTML Review rules on the open-source SpamAssassin Test against multiple email clients – but stay focused on Outlook Have an internal seed list – 3-4 people – to give an email sanity check For larger volume campaigns – consider an A/B Test against subject

lines at a minimum

http://spamassassin.apache.org/tests_3_3_x.html

Back to basics – an email marketing deep dive

Social Media and Email Don’t believe the hype – Social is not replacing email….like

everything else, it is driving change Email marketing is NOT dead – it’s use is growing exponentially

(see Constant Contact Effect) Social is another channel into your site Your site’s purpose in life should be to capture leads Once leads are captures, we use trigger-based nurture email

campaigns

Back to basics – an email marketing deep dive

Building a strong call to action There can be only one Limit/eliminate links to your website in emails Use big buttons – include text link underneath For assets like white papers – use thumbnail images Assets don’t necessarily require forms if you have the click

metrics If using forms for assets like white papers – use trigger emails

to fulfill Cool tool – www.mycoolbutton.com

Click to download

B2B Campaigns – Trigger/nurture based email There can be only one Limit/eliminate links to your website in emails Use big buttons – include text link underneath For assets like white papers – use thumbnail images Assets don’t necessarily require forms if you have the click

metrics If using forms for assets like white papers – use trigger emails

to fulfill Cool tool – www.mycoolbutton.com

Trigger email results

In b2b – triggers are lower volume but very high open rates

Use triggers to reinforce brand/message Continually reinforce consistent messages/call to actions

Practical Application of Trigger email in B2B

Forms-driven triggersMarketing Asset Auto-Responder

• Capture email/contact• Send asset via email• Trigger email

Link to PDF Click to see demo Click to view other

resources

Practical Application of Trigger email in B2BMarketing Asset Auto-Responder with Branched Logic

• Capture email/contact• Mutliple choice question• Answer triggers a 3-step

campaign Email 1 – 0 Trigger days Email 2 – 5 Trigger days Email 3 – 14 Trigger

days

Practical Application of Trigger email in B2BImplicit action – trigger campaign enrollment

• Lead scoring models behavior

• Behavior = points• Point value range = group• Group actions = Trigger

Implicit behavior scoring is a powerful methodology used to communicate broad-based messages to groups of people based on their overall behavior

Practical Application of Trigger email in B2BCRM/Sales Driven – Field value change/populate triggers

• Trigger campaign enrollment based on concept of “listening” to designated CRM fields

• Update/Enter of a “listened” field will result in adding the lead/contact to a single or multi-step campaign

• Used to offload the act of “tickler” emails from sales to marketing

• Don’t rely on sales to use follow up tasks in CRM to nurture leads

• Example – lead status changes from “Open” to “Nurture” – system auto-enrolls lead into ongoing campaign

Personalization & dynamic content

Good trigger based email marketing is relevant to the consumer/prospect

Personalization adds value to the email.

Dynamic content can be leveraged to dramatically improve the personalized look, feel and message of the email

Before you pull the trigger….

• Get your content in order – trigger campaigns can eat up content• Create a content map for each trigger campaign• Consider the length of the campaign vs. timeliness of content• Don’t throw content out there for the sake of doing so• Mix in multi-media/channel content – video/social/blog• All content should still point to the same outcome/call to action• Planning trigger campaigns should always focus on the goal/call-

to-action

Plan + Content/Technology = Trigger marketing

Creating content maps

• Trigger Campaign – Website – White Paper

Website – White Paper A

Email 1 – Send white paper link

Email 2 – 7-trigger days – Offer webinar video

Email 3– 14 -trigger days – Offer – product brochure

Offer /Form Demo/Sales Meeting

Offer /Form Demo/Sales Meeting

Offer /Form Demo/Sales Meeting

Marketing Automation versus ESP

Email

Bulk and Drip-based

email

Trigger & Nurture

based email

Multichannel

Social, PPC, all channels

Integrated lead capture

forms

Integrated

All info connected

to CRM

Interconnected features

within platform

Marketing Automation Platform – Includes all marketing functions in one app

ESP Application

• Bulk email • Some social

sharing• Metrics• Not tied to

CRM• Shared IP• 12-month

solution

Marketing ToolsNot integrated to

CRM

CRM Systems aredata entry only

Marketing data is non-existent or not

useful to sales

Revenue lossLower CRM adoption

Weak funnel

Email Marketing and Lead Management

Inside Sales use of trigger campaignsWebsite

monitoringResearch

anonymous visitors – append with contacts –

enroll in campaigns

Pop email alert when high-value activity occurs – assign task for

call

If no phone contact made – enroll in trigger

campaign

Receive on-going alerts when lead

returns to site/responds

Inside Sales Teams are leveraging new email marketing tools for b2b• Respond to leads with HTML

email templates• Enroll new suspects in intro

nurture campaigns• Enroll cold but not dead leads in

nurture campaigns• Increased touch-points with

larger number of suspects

Generate Leads

Capture Leads

Route Leads

Track Sales Opportuniti

es

Revenue Analysis

• Email Marketing• Nurture Marketing• Social Media• Online/Offline

Marketing

• Landing Pages

• Web visitor tracking

• Lead Scoring • Lead Routing• Real time

alerts

• Feedback loop from CRM to FUSION CRM

• Dashboards• Linked to

CRM oppt.• Real-time

analytics• Campaign

spend analysis

What does SalesFUSION Offer?

B2B email marketing and CRM

Provide meaningful info to Sales in CRM, improve user experience Information in CRM is valuable to sales in prospecting Change perception from data entry, to value Fully automated - Allows for better lead lifecycle tracking

Focused 100% on integrating Marketing and CRM Clients are raving fans of hands-on service Most aggressive pricing in market 30-day Live Trial Pre-integrated to more CRM systems than any other vendors

in our space

Thank you! Q&A Sign up for a 1/1 demo of SalesFUSION Visit our online resource center PDF Materials & Video will be available White paper – Published on 9/15 Visit our online resource center More “Marketing Masters” series webinars coming through

Q3/Q4