email marketing

Sarah Worsham / Jan 22, 2014

Why Phone Calls Are Important to Email Marketing Metrics

English: This is an example of the angst cause... — (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The point of marketing is to get the sale. Marketing often crosses channels — people will see a tv ad, and then check out a website — or see something on Facebook and decide to stop into a store. The same is true of email marketing — it often drives phone calls. These phone calls are often very high quality leads and so should be attributed as a success metric for the email marketing that generated them. Marketo has a great article with more detail on why phone calls are important and what metrics to look at…

Inbound phone leads are different. A 2012 BIA Kelsey Group study found that inbound callers are 10 times more likely to make a purchase than leads that simply clicked a link. That’s because leads that call you are most often further along in the buying process and ready to engage with a sales rep. So even if your email campaigns only generate a low volume of inbound calls compared to clicks and downloads, the calls are the leads that most often translate to revenue. Therefore, these leads are the ones marketers most need to track.

Failing to account for the sales pipeline and revenue from these inbound calls does a big disservice to your email campaigns. This practice also falsely deflates the ROI metrics you present to your executive team. — Why You Should Include Phone Calls in Your Email Performance Metrics by Blair Symes

Sarah Worsham / Mar 30, 2009

12 Tips for More Effective Email Marketing

emailfrozenchipmunk Emailing a prospective client can be difficult at best. Following up on potential leads is important, but so is saying the right thing. It may help to consider your email piece as an elevator pitch – you only have a few seconds to grab attention and entice the customer to continue the conversation. Here are a few tips to help make your email more effective:

Keep it short – No one wants to read pages of text in an email. If it’s longer than 3 or 4 paragraphs, it’s too long. One or two paragraphs (short!) are best.
Focus on the customer – What benefits are you offering them? What will they gain from your product or services?
Be concise – Get right to the point about who you are and what you’re offering.
Use bullet points – Short phrases in bullet points can be effective for getting across a message succinctly.
Provide examples – Potential customers want to know what you’ve successfully done in the past. Keep examples short and link to longer explanations or case studies on your website.
Keep it simple – Even people in your industry won’t want to read wordy technical explanations. Make sure just about anyone can understand what you’re talking about.
Link to your website – for more information or longer testimonials or stories.
Include a call to action – Whatever you’d like the person to do. It’s most effective if its something you’re offering them on your website (for free) that you can use to gather the lead (and measure that they’re actually interested).
Introduce Yourself – Customers want to know who you are, but keep it to 1 or 2 sentences (think elevator pitch). Link to more information on your website.
Followup – Don’t rely on customers to contact you. Followup with another email or a phone call during a specified time period. Ask when and how they prefer to be contacted.
Respect privacy – Have a privacy policy and follow it. Allow people the option to opt-out of receiving emails from you. Post it on your website and link to it in your emails.
Give them space – Don’t bombard potential customers with phone calls and emails. Give them time to think and do their own work. Contact them at specific times through their preferred channel.

This an evolving list. Do you have tips that you’d like to share? We’d love to hear them in the comments!

(photo by frozenchipmunk @ Flickr CC)

Technorati tags: direct marketing, email marketing, internet marketing, business, leads, lead generation, sales, marketing

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Sarah Worsham / Jan 21, 2009

eNewsletter Benefits

envelopetimmorgan By offering timely information of value, an email newsletter can be a great way to connect with your customers and business contacts to create an ongoing relationship. Content is important to your Internet business strategy and eNewsletters give you another type of media to circulate your message. Here are some of the other benefits of an eNewsletter:

Keep customers and business partners informed of new products and services.
Direct contact with people interested in your business.
Opportunity to build reputation and brand loyalty.
Ability to track customer interest via opens and clicks.
Reduces marketing efforts – can offer promotions directly to customers.
Collect customer research via surveys and responses.
Cost effective marketing and communication with a targeted audience.
Can schedule regular communications with customers – for anniversaries, birthdays, etc.
Offer information to help purchase decisions.
Followup on potential leads.
Reduce support costs via continuing product and service information.
Continue relationship with customers.

(photo by Tim Morgan @ Flickr CC)

Technorati Tags: enewsletters, email marketing, newsletter, internet marketing, internet strategy business