Marketing CrackerJack

Relevant, Interactive email driving performance

noreply@blogger.com (Carson Poppenger) — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 22:14:00 +0000

Just received a very cool, interactive email creative from the folks at LinkedIn. It sort of caught my eye, but when I looked closer it was nearly all dynamic content.

The email creative included photos of many of my LinkedIn contacts, along with call-outs featuring their names. If you're on there and didn't want to be, sorry about that. However, I still think it's a very cool use of relevant, dynamic email content. Have you implemented an email like this before? What challenges did you face? I'd love to hear from you.

Sales Team - Data Integrity Fail

noreply@blogger.com (Carson Poppenger) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 21:46:00 +0000

Data integrity should be a huge concern with any organization, particularly if you'd like to utilize that data in future marketing efforts. This is something I see often, and it's a huge pet peeve of mine because it causes major issues in ensuring data is usable within future marketing campaigns. Obviously bad emails will contribute to poor delivery, and text in a phone number will cause a dialer to choke on that file rendering it useless. What about embarrassing personalization issues when you insert a client name in an email or direct mail piece? (see image below).

Your systems are flawed if the only place for a sales person to add notes on an account is within a data field. If your sales team thinks modifying contact info to include reminders is a good idea, please recommend a job digging ditches. :)

The most common problems I've seen regularly include:

phone: 555-987-6543**BestNumber
phone: 555-987-1234**WifesNameisBeverly
email: please@onlymakephonecalls.com

This is a common problem in organizations that either don't have a CRM, or they do, but they're using it incorrectly. If you have a good marketing database analyst / administrator you can catch alot of these issues using data cleansing rules, but I've found even the best cleansing rules can't catch some of these issues.

Consider these options when setting up your CRM, or sales interface.

- Numeric only field values for phone numbers

- Should edits made by sales over-ride existing data?

- Include a "preferred contact method" field within your database scheme

- Include spouse information as a separate field value on the same record

With the proper setup in the beginning, and some good training you can avoid these common issues. Remember, the best systems still won't catch alot of these issues, without thorough training with the sales team on data integrity and proper training on what data should be captured, or disregarded.

I laugh every time I see these types of issues, because I can just picture one of the sales guys putting the info into a client record. Do you have any funny data integrity stories? I'd love to hear them...

Google Earth - Viral Video

noreply@blogger.com (Carson Poppenger) — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 18:46:00 +0000

Google just developed a new Demo Slam advertising project which allows users to submit their own videos featuring google technology. This is the best one I found. Google Earth - Japanese redneck skydiving. This video cracks me up...

B2B Marketing Automation - Interactive Map

noreply@blogger.com (Carson Poppenger) — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 22:59:00 +0000

If you're looking for information on various Marketing Automation platforms, how they compare you need to see this Interactive Map developed by the team at MarketingAutomationSoftware.com

Mormon Church ranked # 1 for Search Term "Church"

noreply@blogger.com (Carson Poppenger) — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 17:39:00 +0000

Great praise for the LDS Church web team from Avinash Kaushik, Analytics Evangelist for Google. Discusses their use of tag clouds to achieve a # 1 rank for keyword "church".

Trends in Marketing Automation

noreply@blogger.com (Carson Poppenger) — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 18:23:00 +0000

Marketing automation appears to be heating up, as marketing departments work to do more with less during this downturn in the economy. That's good news for companies like Eloqua, Marketo, Pardot and Active Conversion which offer tools for marketers to deliver timely, relevant

content and offers on products and services.

I read a great post this week by Lauren Carlson with Softwareadvice.com describing some of the macro-trends that are pushing buyers toward marketing automation. The biggest issues I believe include longer sales cycles, and the need to deliver timely, relevant content, keeping your product or service in front of buyers and consumers. We're now seeing advances in making these systems easier to implement and administer as a host of new players come on the market.

Marketers who implement marketing automation will enjoy streamlined messaging, and closed loop reporting unavailable when other channels are siloed throughout the marketing organization. In many large organizations we're still seeing traditional marketers trying to deliver the quality and volume of content manually which can actually be automated.

In the past, much of the lead nurturing was left up to the sales team, which would develop content and send articles and industry news to prospects in the pipeline. While those activities are crucial to the sales process, they aren't closing deals. In addition, you have all the issues with controlling the content and message that countless sales people are sending out. I think ultimately we're already seeing a shift within marketing departments to create Lead Nurturing and Demand Generation teams which specialize in marketing automation.

If you're looking to implement Marketing Automation software, please contact me to discuss. Squeeze Media offers implementation of various tools including; Eloqua, Active Conversion and Pardot.

Telemarketing Stealth Failure

noreply@blogger.com (Carson Poppenger) — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 04:02:00 +0000

I laughed when I saw this caller ID. I found this number
was actually on the "fail blog" when it used to read
"Phone Scam". It looks like they're moving in the right
direction. Now to just dial a few things in a bit...

Marketing Commentator - M.I.A.

noreply@blogger.com (Carson Poppenger) — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 04:46:00 +0000

It's been an incredible year, so much going on. I'm sitting here reviewing past posts, insanely jealous of the time I used to have to writing my thoughts down on this blog. I've learned that things can be very different when your paying yourself to go to work, instead of someone else paying you to be there. :)

Life's been good, but extremely busy with our business. I know we have a long way to go, but it's nice to know that things are starting to roll. There are new opportunities almost daily, but we need to find the means to execute on the best ideas and not get side tracked by less profitable opportunities. With a new business, distraction and diversion can seriously take you off course if you're not careful. On one hand, you don't want to pass up any opportunities and potential revenue. On the other hand... Spreading yourself too thin, or working outside of your capabilities can cost both time and money.

As a marketer, I've learned that I really prefer to drive value for both the clients I work with, and their prospects / customers. Well, that should go without saying right? In this business it's too easy to get caught up in an opportunity and lose sight of the value.

Instead of throwing it against the wall and seeing what sticks, I'd prefer to use my experience to find something that sticks and throw a lot of it against the wall.

Here are three lessons I've learned in the past few years as an entrepreneur:

1. Stay focused.
2. The best investment money you can secure is from your own sales. (Sell,Sell,Sell)
3. Soar with your strengths, go with what you know. Hire talent for the rest.

FTC Regulation Changes - Free +Ship & Negative Option offers

noreply@blogger.com (Carson Poppenger) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:41:00 +0000

Checkout this video I just received from Russell Brunson, which explains Micro-continuity offers and has some great insights into how the FTC worked with Visa and Mastercard to clean up alot of the deceptive web offers over the past few months.

Entrepreneur State of Mind - video

noreply@blogger.com (Carson Poppenger) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:19:00 +0000

This is a funny video from Grasshopper "Entrepreneur State of Mind". We use Grasshopper and it rocks.

News Site Spammers: Vibrant Ads

noreply@blogger.com (Carson Poppenger) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:12:00 +0000

I'm going to take this opportunity to go on an advertising rant. Have you ever been reading a news site, such as Fox News and as you scroll down the page... 10 pop-ups appear and block your view of the content. It's absolutely the most intrusive form of online advertising I've seen. In my mind, this is horrible positioning for this advertiser, as well as all those who place ad's with this type of media. What's hilarious to me is the fact that they proudly display their logo "Vibrant Ad's" in the pop-up that's now blocking my view. In my mind, this is poor brand management at it's finest for Vibrant. This morning, I was so ticked that I sent them an email telling them "Congratulations, you're the most annoying advertisers on the web". Hahah

If you're interested, there is a simple way to block this type of content, specifically from this publisher using Internet Explorer, I couldn't find the steps in Firefox, but i'm sure it's possible. It is very simple, and you can avoid the constant frustration and bombardment you'll see from these type of Vibrant Ads.

Block Vibrant Ads from sites you visit

Simply open IE
Click on tools
Select internet options
Click the security tab
Highlight restricted sites.
Click on the sites button below it
Add this site to the zone: enter this just as it look's *.us.intellitxt.com
Then restart internet explorer

This will work as long as their publishing the ads from that domain. I'll continue to monitor it, and update the domain as necessary.

Revenue Models: Performance Based vs. Cash Upfront

noreply@blogger.com (Carson Poppenger) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 06:54:00 +0000

In today's economy, you want low barriers to entry. I've worked on setting up models which are all performance based. This is a great way to drive in new business, but can also create cash-flow problems later when it comes time to collect payment. The credit markets are tight, people are cautious and business owners usually have some of the worst track records with paying on time. Just ask the people at Amex, they're usually the first ones to be moved to the bottom of the pile when it's time to pay bills. Without any track-record with a new client, how can you ensure you'll get paid net 15 / net 30? I actually knew a business owner who once told me that he wanted to put all vendors on a Net 90. That's hilarious considering that his company collected payment from their customers weekly. "We get paid weekly; we'll pay you 4 times per year". That sounds like a recipe for success.

The salesman in me wants to just sign the contract and get rolling, but you sometimes can't take any chances. If you're risk adverse and want to hedge your bets, it's a great idea to collect an installment up front. In the marketing world, as with any industry, we have costs of doing business as soon as the relationship starts including; campaign development, strategy, creative's, programming.

Once the relationship starts you'll begin to incur costs whether you collect upfront or performance based. The meter starts ticking and cash is being spent. If your client isn't financially committed you might have the contract and work, but when it's time to push the button they may have a "change of direction". There's nothing like working on a project, then later finding out your client isn't fully invested and you won't collect your return.

I've seen this countless times over the years and it's always avoidable. Although I hate to cut checks for pre-pay items, I can't argue with the logic. In my experience, as soon as that check is cut, I want to know when the work will be completed and how quickly I can get my ROI. In contrast, with no commitment, they may find that I'm hard to get ahold of later for some reason. It's not on purpose, it's just how that seems to work. Nothing gets your attention like a line item on your budget.

Suggestions on collecting upfront pre-pays and still closing the deal

Provide clear direction on what the deliverables will be once work begins, detail it out in a scope document if necessary. People are visual, they'll want to see what their getting.

Detail your initial costs on commencement of the agreement (design, programming, staffing, etc.)

Explain why you collect fees upfront, it engages clients and ensures they're committed. This might not work all the time, but it makes sense and it's logical.

Use friendly lingo: Words like pre-loaded expenses, will work much better than "Deposit, Down-Payment, or Installment fee".

If necessary, use a retainer: If push comes to shove, you might want to consider withholding a portion on a retainer. It allows you to sign the deal, secure some funds and confidently begin work. You can call it "sharing the risk".

In today's economy, cash flow is tight for many industries. In order to be successful, new business is critical, but getting paid should rank higher. In a presentation at Launchup last week, I heard a great quote from Ben Peterson. "In business, Cash flow is more important than your mother". Although we all love our Mom's, it's hard to disagree with that quote.

What do you think? Is it possible to have a 100% performance based model, without avoiding certain deals that have unpredictable results? I'd like to know your thoughts...

Twitter: Does it have any legs?

noreply@blogger.com (Carson Poppenger) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 06:53:00 +0000

Unless you've been living under a rock, you're likely familiar with Twitter. It's the big buzz in SM right now. I've been using it regularly for about a few months and have found some interesting uses for it. However, unless your a die-hard tweeter, or marketer it's hard to see a lot of the value in the service. It's basically a public-facing, searchable, text message repository. In my opinion, if it's going to have any legs, they're going to have to make some updates to the interface. There are already a ton of app's that have sprung up offering the features that Twitter should be offering themselves already.

As far as I can tell, there is no clear revenue model with the service as of yet, but apparently it's in development. They're not making a dime yet, but I'm sure their rev model will involve advertising. Theres no way subscribers would pay for the service, not the critical mass anyway.

It's ironic however that there are a ton of users already advertising their products and content through tweets all day... It's possible that the folks at Twitter have been watching how the users are interfacing with the system, to decide how to best monetize all that traffic. It's an insane amount of traffic, and at present it seems that's all they have. It's enough traffic however to get Google's attention. Theres a rumor released this week that they've offered Twitter $250 Million for their platform (read the techcrunch article here).

As I was researching their revenue model, I found an interesting article discussing this issue. Silicon Alley recently completed a contest titled "Create a Twitter Revenue Model" to help generate ideas for the service. It's a cool idea, I'm sure there were some intersting submissions.

There are already a ton of people jumping on the bandwagon, building services and tools around the platform. Last week I attended a local entrepreneur "Barn Raising" in Utah called Launchup. One startup presented their idea called TweetBooty, multiple online twitter accounts, which you can follow, that publish coupons from local businesses. I was having a hard time seeing the value of building an online coupon distribution system on the coattails of Twitter, but they even had VC money behind them...very surprising. They plan to make 5 cents per published ad. That's alot of nickels boys and girls... With advertising appearing to be ultimately controlled by Twitter, I wonder how that will factor into their business model.

If I were Twitter, I'd take the $250,000,000 and run. They've done all the work to create the market for the platform, get people behind it. It's time to let the folks at Google work their advertising magic and get out of dodge.

What are your thoughts? Do you see the system evolving more, filling the needs such as applications such as Tweetdeck, Twitseek and others? What ways do you see the company monetizing all that traffic?

Direct Mail: Is it dead, or under-utilized?

noreply@blogger.com (Carson Poppenger) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 06:42:00 +0000

It's been too long since my last post... In the past few months, I've been seeing an increased interest in Direct Mail, so I thought I'd post some thoughts and get feedback from everyone out there.

There's no question, that direct mail isn't considered one of the cheapest marketing channels lately, especially with the volume and production you can get out of email. However, there's alot to be said of mixing your marketing mediums and attracting a different type of customer. When digging through my bills and other junkmail (i'll classify bills as junk mail), I always appreciate a nice, high-quality, personalized mail piece in my mailbox. It's old school, but get's my attention sometimes more than an email with blocked images and no visible text (yes marketers still do that, I know some of the worst offenders out there).

I've had the opportunity recently to visit with a new friend of mine Kent Merrill with Merrill-Remington Direct Marketing. Kent has a tremendous amount of Direct Marketing experience, and has been a direct mail powerhouse since the 80's. I had to ask Kent how direct mail has changed over the past ten years, and he said that "he's seeing constant, steady production, really not much has changed in that regard". After talking with him further, and seeing some of his work, it's not surprising why he's had such great success. Kent's a very creative thinker and can leverage his experience to produce great results with any direct mail campaign.

In the past, I had overlooked the power of geographic and demographic targeting with my mailings. When you implement appended data such as geo and demographic data, you can produce the same volume of responders without all the waste in mailing those who aren't likely to respond anyway. I've put together an awesome proposal for a large group, which will leverage real-time delivery using variable data mailers as an upsell for a lead partner. In addition, I'm also looking for new ways to leverage this channel further within the financial, insurance and consumer product verticals.

One of my favorite Direct Mail stories involves American Express. Yes, I'm a card holder, I have two; blue and gold. I've actually signed up with both cards through their direct mail offers, so I guess you could say that I'm one of their DM success stories. However, the success stops there. Amex: When are they going to flippin' figure out that I have both of those cards? Note to American Express: Please cross-check your database when mailing me offers to sign up for the two cards I ALREADY CARRY. It's a huge waste of your money! Instead, you could be offering me other products and services. I think everyone out there can relate to that story, it seems to be fairly common. It's so important to know your customer and ensure you're sending them the appropriate offers. It would be hard for me to believe that Amex doesn't have my products flagged in their marketing database. It can get very annoying, especially for consumers more observant than the average bear, like myself :)

Please share any experiences you've had in the past few years with Direct Mail campaigns, or other effective ways you've used this channel to generate new leads and convert prospects...

Inspiring words...

noreply@blogger.com (Carson Poppenger) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 04:50:00 +0000

This is a great quote that my good friend Bryce told me about last year, he even engraved it on a plaque and gave it to me to hang on my wall. I've been staring at it for the past twelve months and it's always refreshing.

"If you don't take action to accomplish your goals, you will be used to accomplish someone else's."

If you're the type of person that's "bigger than your fishbowl", you might find these words inspiring. I believe that there can be great honor in helping others acheive their goals, especially when you're recognized and rewarded for your hard work. However, if it's keeping you from achieving your personal, professional or family goals and it's not fulfilling, then you truly can't be happy. This week I finally felt the meaning of this quote that's been hanging on my wall for the past year. Here's to dreams, goals and the opportunities we all face.

Thanks Bryce!

Twitter Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Carson Poppenger) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 04:07:00 +0000

I've been out of touch for the past week, preparing for LeadsCon and getting back and caught up with everything. In the past month, I've been using twitter for personal communication, and it has it's pros and cons. I was reluctant to use it, since it seems like a gimmick. I can tell you this, there are a crap load of spammers on there already, hitting everyone up with all sorts of crap. It kinda reminds me of some friends of mine. Anyway... I've used my personal twitter account to communicate with friends, post to my facebook, grow my network and promote my blog. Overall, It's been a useful tool and somewhat addicting...

In the process of preparing for the event, I had a late night epiphany, one of those ones that hits you at 2am when your sleeping. You have to get out of bed and move on it right away, cuz it's so cool. I realized that I needed to setup a Twit account for my biznass, so I quickly set it up and customized the design to fit our branding. Then, I searched out everyone tweeting about the conference using http://search.twitter.com It allows you to find people talking about the event, the same people that are going to the event... I quickly added 200 people that commenting on LeadsCon. In addition LeadsCon had a Twitter account, so I added everyone connected to them. It wasn't long before all the add requests started coming back to me. I quickly had a list of people, a captive audience of people attending the event. I was back in bed by 3:00am and able to have that all wrapped up. Then throughout the event, I sent out promo updates, links to our site, and funny stuff to generate some buzz...

The effect was a TON of people that were hitting up our booth telling us they've been following us on their twitterberry (twitter app for bberry) and asking "Who's the hilarious person writing all this stuff on your twitter account? I've gotta meet them". In addition, I'm still adding people who are talking about the event, and communicating ongoing messaging to the list. I've even had a couple of business offers come through on DM.

That is incredible targeted, mobile, relevant messaging at it's best. I love this stuff...

Lead Nurturing: Cost or Return?

noreply@blogger.com (Carson Poppenger) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 02:40:00 +0000

In the past few months I've written several articles about lead nurturing and lead recycling. We're seeing a contraction across the market, everyone is trying to look for new ways to generate more leads. Lead nurturing is an often overlooked way to increase the ROI on sunk costs from front end lead acquisition. However, while these programs generate additional top-line revenue, they come at a cost. It would be nice to generate a steady ongoing stream of leads from a single investment, but that's not likely. You'll need to invest in systems, technology and resources to ensure your program is efficent. Think of it this way, when you nurture leads your recouping revenue and converting customers that you otherwise wouldn't get. I've seen examples of sales people holding onto leads, companies that have no visibility and quality sales leads that end up collecting dust. What is the cost of that?

How you look at the costs depends alot on your companies overall strategy. In some environments, you can continually generate new leads. However, you'll come to find out that after a certain penetration in the market, you're attracting the same people you've already acquired. If you're on a CPL model, working through affiliates and other web traffic, you could even be paying these groups for LEADS YOU ALREADY OWN. It would be far less costly to nurture that lead to the point of conversion. If you're setup properly, the leads you already own should be closer to purchasing than new leads you'll receive tomorrow. If you nurture the leads you already own, you'll increase the return and it has a residual effect over months and years.

Can you afford to nurture your leads? The question that I ask, is... Can you afford not to? What do you think? Do you have any experience in assessing the ROI of remarketing efforts? I'd love to hear your cases....

Previous post: Lead Nurturing: It's time to go deep

Outsourcing Knowledge: When is the right time?

noreply@blogger.com (Carson Poppenger) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 06:40:00 +0000

As marketers and decision makers, we need to find ways to be more efficient. We need to tap into the resources we have within our organizations and find ways to produce results with less...fill in the blank (resources, time, money, people). One of my favorite things to do is produce something really cool without alot of resources.

That leads me to tonights post on outsourcing. We've all witnessed recently as many of our friends and family have been let go from their employer. This has hit home for me, because I have some very close friends and family who have been impacted by down-sizing. I've also had to take part in this process as well on my own team, it was one of the hardest things I've experienced. I've had to fire plenty of people in the past for performance reasons, but it's so difficult when the only reason is budget...

It is what it is, but that leaves many people left in the wake who still need to get the job done. In some cases, people have been asked to pickup the roles of 2 or 3 other people. It's not the same environment after that...

As those left in the wake, or trying to restructure... How can we do more with less? In the past six months, I've been working with a consulting group Couch & Associates who has tackled a few key projects. In addition, they've helped streamline a few other issues as well. We orginally contracted with them last summer to help with an integration project. Our success on that project has lead to additional opportunities between both of our groups. I had the privledge of working with one of their main consultants, Sandeep Singh (aka. Eloqua Ninja) last week at our offices for an onsite training and troubleshooting session.

In our session, I was able to see first hand the benefits of having an expert to handle specific problems and issues with our platform. We were able to quickly handle projects that I would otherwise not be able to complete, or would take me days or weeks to figure out.

Here's the highlights of last Thursday:

Eloqua Program Builder Training - discussion and application in our install
Best practice consulting on Eloqua forms, microsites - uncovered inefficencies in our current setup
Built an A/B testing program that will automatically pre-deploy an A/B test on a campaign before we send our main batch.
Developed integration between our lead gen / offer database and Eloqua.
Discussed ways in which we can integrate our frontend landing pages and form submissions using Eloqua microsites.

In addition to all of this, we were still able to get up to Sundance and grab a bite to eat for lunch at the Foundry Grill... :) You think I'd pass on lunch?

In some cases it makes sense to fill your team with experts in specific niches. We need to find ways to do more with less, consulting is a great solution to tight budgets when used appropriately. When we originally signed Couch, I had gotten a quote from another vendor that priced the project at 40 hours and $10,000 (I'm not going to name anyone...:). We ended up signing a retainer block with Couch for 10 hours, but felt it would take much less time. Once we dug into the project, Couch found a way for us to complete the project in less than 4 hours and they did most of the work. The ROI on that? Priceless...

In cases like this where you have an experienced user / marketer, you can really enjoy greater efficiency and productivity with some occasional consulting hours with the help of an expert.

In the next few days, I'll post the results and steps to setting up that A/B split testing program. It's pretty slick and easy to use.

CP

Site Analytics: Google Analytics Vs. Enterprise Platforms

noreply@blogger.com (Carson Poppenger) — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 01:35:00 +0000

In the past six months, I've enjoyed working on this blog. It's allowed me to focus on some of the things I've learned over the past few years, and network with marketing professionals around the world. In fact, since September I've had traffic from 41 countries and 37 different states across the US.

I've been using several analytics tools to track and log site stats. It's helpful to see where my traffic is coming from, what they're interested in and their habits while on my site. I had started with Google Analytics on my blog and business site, then started testing a more powerful analytics tool for businesses called Active Conversion. It seems to be similar to an Omniture toolset, but easier to use for small businesses like myself. I was amazed at how simple it is to implement the tracking code on my sites, even for someone not as technical like myself.

Google Analytics: MCJ Global Traffic - September 1, 2009 - Present

It's interesting to compare the free Google Analytics tool against other enterprise level products. The Google Analytics tool allows you to see what city, state, country your traffic originates from based on where the visiting IP address is registered. You can see the referring URL, whether it was from Search traffic, or PPC, what pages they visited and even their click pattern on your site.

In comparison, the Active Conversion tool is really in an entirely different class, more in line with enterprise level software such as Omniture's SiteCatalyst. Although, I've never implemented the Omniture toolset, It seems to be in the same class. With Active Conversions analytics tools you can view the owner (company, or ISP) of the IP address, which is important to companies who wish to know what other companies are on their site. In addition, you can build web forms for your site within Active Conversion, plug the code on your site and when someone submits their form, that data is posted into your Active Conversion tool. Whenever that prospect visits your site in the future, you'll know more about them and whether they're in the market for your product or service.

When you visit your "suspects" list, you can view a full list of your site traffic and find new and returning visitors. As you collect more data, you can build profiles and understand their needs more based on the content they've viewed.

Active Conversion - Suspects List

One interesting observation to note. As I was comparing the site stats head-to-head between Google Analytics and Active Conversions tool, I noticed differences in the reporting. I'd see traffic from company IP's like "3M Corporation" - Minnesota showing up on business website through the Active Conversion dashboard, but that traffic was not being reported through Google. There were regular discrepancies in the reporting within the Google Analytics dashboard.

These tools have been around for years, but companies are finally better understanding how to use this information to further nurture and convert prospects into customers. The sales process is flipping, we need to find ways to push customers into the right product or service, instead of pulling them. One of the best ways to get information on your prospects and customers is to study their habits on your website.

Overall, my trial experience with Active Conversion was great. I'm in the process of evaluating whether to complete a full implementation and utilize it for my business site. If you're looking into Site Analytics tools, I'd recommend checking them out.

CP

Interactive Marketing Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Carson Poppenger) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:25:00 +0000

I've come across this presentation by Eloqua a few times, it's very clever. It was developed by JellyVision, the company behind the "You Don't Know Jack" brand.

The humor and interaction is great, well done... It's a great tool to capture website traffic, and learn more about your prospect based on the path they traveled. I'm assuming they're tracking the path of each prospect and their time on the presentation. Check it out and tell me what you think...

Email Marketing: Reputation Management

noreply@blogger.com (Carson Poppenger) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 06:31:00 +0000

If you've been involved in email marketing, you probably understand how important a good reputation can be. I believe it's very similar to a credit history. If you haven't used credit, you likely don't have a history. Once you're able to secure credit, it can take some time to develop a solid credit history. It's much the same with an email reputation. Once established, it provides a pretty good inidicator of what type of mailer you are. If you're a reputable mailer and practice good habits with your customers and prospects, you're email is likely being delivered to the inbox more often than not.

If you're making aggressive choices with your email campaigns and lists, you're likely getting a high volume of complaints, therefore you're probably having a hard time reaching the inbox.

When I began email marketing several years ago, I quickly realized the importance of a good reputation and worked hard to maintain it. I've watched as various tests I've performed have negatively impacted my reputation and inbox delivery. As with any relationships, It can take years to build a good reputation and with one click of a button, send the wrong message, use the wrong list, irritate your customers and destroy it.

If you're using a dedicated IP or in my case, set of IP's. I'd recommend looking up your Sender Score at www.senderscore.org They provide a free tool that allows you to lookup your sender score. It will show detail your mail volume sent, your reputation score and other key information about your email delivery practices. They provide the information free, if you create an account, you can get more detail. It's a lead gen tool for ReturnPath, but handy information.

In addition, I found a great post by a friend and collegue Steven Woods, he specifically mentions his Deliverability Officer, Dennis Dayman who I had the pleasure of meeting at The Eloqua Experience in October. It's a good read, I included it below:

_____________________________________

All You Never Cared to Know About Deliverability
Original Post by Steven Woods

I'm very happy that we have Dennis Dayman on the Eloqua team - a man who lives and breathes email deliverability. That means I don't have to, and to be honest, I'm very much okay with that.

I did have an interesting time the other week though, trying to explain what email deliverability was all about to a not-so-technical audience. There is a lot of highly technical, complex, and fast-evolving pieces of the deliverability equation, but at the end of the day, it comes down to this:

there are spammers attempting various creative, and evolving, strategies to get their messages into inboxes everwhere
the managers of those inboxes are working to keep spam out and allow legitimate messages in

if you want your message to be allowed in, you need to make sure it is very obvious that you are the sender of a legitimate message

In many ways, this parallels the work of the fine folks who patrol our borders. They employ a variety of techniques and technologies to identify individuals who are not welcome to cross the borders, while allowing legitimate visitors into the country with minimal headache.

Let's look through a few of the approaches that are used.

Your Passport: this is key to your identity, and it is one of the main pieces of information used by the border agents to identify you. In the email world, this is best represented by your IP address. Most of today's deliverability systems use your IP address as the basis of your reputation. Don't share it, any more than you would share your Passport.

Retina Scans: There are more advanced ways of identifying who you are, often involving advanced technology, such as retina scans. Adoption varies, and there's usually a bit of setup and registration you would have to do. In the email world, similarly, there are advanced technologies for identifying who you are, such as DKIM and SPF. Certainly worth doing, however not universally adopted yet.

Criminal Record: Having a clean record is definitely a good thing when you interact with the folks at the border. The same holds true in the email world, one of the key things to look at is an email reputation score that provides the closest thing to a "criminal record" of the IP address you are using. If you are using a partner to manage your emails, be sure to have a look at this.

Police Background Checks: the border guards can obtain a lot of information on a potential visitor by doing a police background check. In the email world, you can run scans and tests of your emails in a similar vein to a background check, flagging anything suspicious or problematic. In the real world a criminal record can be tough to erase, but in the email world, if you see something flagged, there's a good chance you can fix it. Use a Return Path or Pivotal Veracity scan to see what gets flagged before a major mailing, and learn from it.

Visa Stamps: These tell the border guards a lot about where you've been and whether you have been accepted or rejected. Similarly, in the email domain, most major ISPs offer Feedback Loops to indicate whether emails have been rejected, and that there was a complaint. You can then better understand the issue and quickly resolve it. If you're not taking advantage of these, you're missing a key source of information.

The Inside Connection: Okay, I don't claim to have one of these in the border security world, but the world of email deliverability is actually a relatively small world. Knowing who's who, and how the systems operate is very helpful. Being involved with the working groups and commitees forming the policies and legislation gives great insight into how the world of deliverability is continuting to evolve. Having someone like Dennis Dayman around allows us to stay on top of the best approaches both today and tomorrow, so make sure you have someone like Dennis on your team.

Getting your emails delivered is a lot like getting across a border. Know the rules, play by the rules, and keep a clean record. If you have a partner who delivers your emails for you, make sure they also play by the rules.

The speed of implementation

noreply@blogger.com (Carson Poppenger) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 22:46:00 +0000

I enjoyed this video, Eben Pagan discusses the speed of implementing new business ideas. In the video a half dozen entrepreneurs discuss business ideas that they've implemented in hours or days... I love hearing examples like this, gives me even more ideas!

Jobs, the economy and market conditions....

noreply@blogger.com (Carson Poppenger) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 06:38:00 +0000

This post is outside of my typical realm, but I feel it's an important topic to address. It's sort of a rant, so bear with me. I've been thinking about the economy allot lately, trying to figure out how we got into this mess, and what we need to do to get out of it... I keep coming down to the thought that Americans need to produce more and consume less. If we are going to effectively produce products, we need to export them to the world market, instead of trying to rack up credit cards and debt of other Americans.

We've got to stop pimpin' our wares to other Americans. In the past 20 years we've witnessed a boom of retail nationwide. There's a Walmart and strip mall on every corner, which depend on you and me to come down and purchase goods. Their location was strategically placed to generate the maximum amount of revenue from surrounding people. These locations were based upon population counts, anticipated growth, and household income. These provide jobs and goods which are necessary to our survival for the most part, however how much is too much? Do we need 4, 100,000 square foot Walmarts within a 10 minute drive? If Americans are getting more frugal, what population can support a Walmart supercenter? I'm pretty sure it isn't 4 within a 10 mile radius. More importantly, what happens when people stop spending as much… This is why we’re seeing an implosion in the housing, retail and big-box markets. It may sound like i'm picking on Walmart, but their just the best example. There are thousands of other companies that have grown to prominence on the same principles.

We need to change our reality... We need to produce more and consume less... It's a strategy that won't work as long as every job and company depends on other Americans wallets alone.

How can we produce more, if the market is contracting? We need to go International. The stimulus plan should include strategy to build jobs that export goods and resources to Middle East and other strong economies ... Sure, let's invest in infrastructure and energy for ourselves, but how can we export our technology and resources to draw revenue from outside our country? What about buying American? It won't work; we need to contribute to the global economy, just as they need to contribute to our economy. How can we make our goods more appealing to the international market?

Do we continue throwing money at industries (auto, retail, housing) that are built on a faulty model, a model dependent on overindulgent Americans?

Buy American... Sure, when you can.... but more importantly sell International....

I'm tired of hearing all the politicians running their mouths about the economy and stimulus bills that amount to nothing more than special interests. The fact is that most of them have no idea what their even talking about. They're just taking a stab in the dark, trying to help their friends while spending our money like drunken sailors. We need business leaders to step up and fix these problems quickly. The longer we wait, the bigger the hole our government and politicians are digging for us.

I smell an opportunity... I'm trying to think of 2 or 3 business ideas I can peddle to the foreign market. What do you think?

Social Media Traffic

noreply@blogger.com (Carson Poppenger) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 21:24:00 +0000

I received a question via linkedin from an associate. They were asking what social media tools are most valuable to promote your business. I posted a response that you can read here. I think many people would assume LinkedIn is the business leader. However, I feel that FaceBook is quickly becoming the leader because of how sticky it is, and the variety of users it attracts and the availablity of applications.

This had my attention, so I did a quick check using http://www.compete.com/ to see how much traffic each of the big players generate.

Check this out... As I suspected, Facebook has almost ten times the traffic as LinkedIn. Nearly 60 Million hits last month, compared to Linkedin 12 million. I still think all of the platforms can be valuable, and can be used together to promote your business, but Facebook has got some serious clout.

A few months ago, I posted about a keynote given by Anthony Lye, the VP of CRM for Oracle. They're rapidly building ways for companies to integrate their CRM with Social Media profiles. This is very cool technology that will allow companies to better understand and market to their consumers. When you make changes to your profile, you're data is updated in the companies CRM. It doesn't get any more targeted than that...

What do you think? What platforms do you find the most valuable for your business?

Education Marketing on the Rise

noreply@blogger.com (Carson Poppenger) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:24:00 +0000

This past week, I noticed Kaplan University is running some new spots on TV. They caught my attention because of the depth of their message, but also because I have a collegue at Kaplan.

In 2009 all signs are pointing to an increase in marketing spend in the education space. I think this is a sign of more to come from the non-traditional post-secondary education market.

I really enjoyed both of these spots. However, I like the professor the best because the message is so powerful and inspiring. "I've failed you, the system has failed you." The traditional education model is broken and we need change. They're making bold promises. They're playing on the emotions of everyones discontent with the current economy and market. If they can actually fulfill on their promise, look out...

"Where is it written that you can't change your life? That's just the thing...It isn't written anywhere".

They're branding is strong at the end, with their mark featured predominently. I think the message is different enough that it creates curiosity. The message is clear, they're changing higher education. Overall, I think it was well done, much better than other education spots I've seen.