Email Lists: Should You Rent or Buy?

December 16, 2011 – 7:16 am

It was only a few years ago that I would have told any client who asked (and many did) that it was never a good idea to purchase an email list, and that moreover, any list of email addresses that was available for purchase was by definition compiled through nefarious means and not worth the risk.

That was then. Today, the decision of whether to rent or buy an email list isn’t quite so clear-cut. If you’re looking to integrate email into your lead generation mix in 2012, you would do well to consider list purchase as an increasingly viable option.

Say you’re marketing a new product, and inbound marketing alone (content syndication, search, social media) won’t cut it. It’s clear that you need to include more proactive outreach to the type of prospects most likely to have a need for your new solution, even if they don’t know such a solution exists. You decide that you want to email those prospects with an offer to download a white paper about the business problem your product solves. Let’s consider your options: Read More »

By Howard Sewell | Posted in B2B Marketing, Demand Generation, email marketing, Lead Nurturing, Lists, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Comments (1)

How to Revive a Dying E-Newsletter: 4 Tips

November 28, 2011 – 8:54 am

The demise of email newsletters as an effective B2B marketing tactic has been, to paraphrase Mr. Twain, grossly exaggerated. In fact, email newsletters can be a critical part of an ongoing lead nurturing strategy.

At minimum, a well-crafted newsletter serves to break up what would otherwise be an unending sequence of more offer-oriented emails peddling white papers, Webinars and the like. Newsletters also serve as a convenient vehicle for announcements, news bites, tips and techniques that might not otherwise merit their own dedicated message.

For all their benefits, however, newsletters are a royal pain to produce. They commit the publisher to a critical mass of content on an overly aggressive schedule, content that in turn depends on multiple contributors who never seem to share your same sense of urgency. In my experience, most corporate email newsletters have a relatively short lifespan. They launch with great fanfare and optimism, only to gradually diminish in frequency until they die on the proverbial vine altogether.

Here then are a few lessons learned to help your e-newsletter succeed and prosper:

1. Plan your newsletter with a specific goal and audience in mind.

A newsletter cannot be all things to all people. It cannot cater to customers and prospects and press/analysts and be in any way cohesive and effective. It’s far preferable to focus your newsletter on one, specific audience (say, existing customers) and a corresponding goal (say, reducing churn and increasing upsell opportunities.) Working with a specific target audience and goal helps to focus the content in a way that will resonate with the intended readers. Read More »

By Howard Sewell | Posted in B2B Marketing, blog marketing, Creative, email design, Email Newsletters, Interactive Design, Lead Management, Lead Nurturing, Social Media | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (2)

No Leads from Social Media? No Excuses.

November 16, 2011 – 1:22 pm

In a recent post, the folks over at Silicon Angle applied their usual insightful analysis to the results of an industry survey by marketing automation company Pardot, a survey that reports fully 42 percent of respondents (all B2B Marketers) have failed to generate any leads from their social media campaigns. At first blush, that number is pretty startling, but on reflection, it really shouldn’t be too surprising.

I’ve written previously in this space about how corporate social media initiatives are so often in the hands of people, notably PR agencies, for whom lead generation is neither a priority nor a core competency. (Put a PR agency in charge of social media, and I can pretty much guarantee you’ll generate PR, not leads.) Regardless of who’s in the driver’s seat, however, there’s absolutely no reason, no excuse, for a company’s social media efforts not to be generating leads, and lots of them.

For example, take this blog our agency designed more than a year ago for Navicure, a leading online medical claims clearinghouse. The blog generated more than 500 leads in its first 9 months alone, and this from a target audience (billing managers at small- to mid-sized medical practices) that can hardly be described as the Facebook crowd. At last report, the program was generating a 400 percent ROI based on revenue generated that could be attributed directly to, or influenced by, leads that came directly from the blog. (Navicure uses Marketo and Salesforce.com to track marketing ROI.) Read More »

By Howard Sewell | Posted in B2B Marketing, blog marketing, Blogs, Campaign Measurement, Social Media, Web 2.0 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

DMA Webinar: Top 10 Tips for Lead Nurturing Success

November 9, 2011 – 3:35 pm

In an exclusive online event, discover how to get the most from your lead nurturing program, and how to plan for success if you’re just getting started. Join me on Wednesday, December 7 as I present a Webinar on “Top 10 Tips for Lead Nurturing Success,” hosted by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA).

In under one hour, you’ll learn:

• creative solutions to a lack of lead nurturing content …
• the top 5 questions to ask about your current lead management process …
• how to integrate social media into your lead nurturing strategy …

along with specific, practical tips and ideas on email frequency, segmentation, offer strategy, fulfillment, and creative execution, all illustrated by real-life B2B campaigns.

Top 10 Tips for Lead Nurturing Success
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
2:00 PM – 3:00 PM ET

The Webinar is free of charge to DMA members ($29 to non-members). Register online at the DMA site.

By Howard Sewell | Posted in B2B Marketing, Lead Management, Lead Nurturing, Marketing Automation, Webinars | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Radian6 Email Campaign Hits the Mark

October 20, 2011 – 6:28 am

There’s a lot to like about the email below received last week from Radian6, makers of social media monitoring tools (and recently acquired by Salesforce.com.) Most notable: not once in the entire copy is the company or product mentioned. This is content marketing, pure and simple.

What I like:

1. The headline: “Strategically Social: 5 Keys to Becoming a Social Business” promises a specific, tangible learning benefit (“5 Keys”), drawing the reader into the copy.

2. The very first paragraph identifies the offer immediately, in terms that promise insight and information of value. Note that whereas there’s no mention of the product, the people most interested in what the ebook has to offer (“…how companies are integrating social tools and strategies …”) are by default those that will be interested in Radian6 solutions. Read More »

By Howard Sewell | Posted in B2B Marketing, Content marketing, Copywriting, Creative, Demand Generation, E-mail, email design, email marketing, Social Media | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (1)