24 hours in pipeline A&E

June 17, 2013 by 1 Comment

I was watching a fascinating documentary the other day on the making of 24hrs in A&E, which is Channel 4 production.  The pipeline management softwaredocumentary focuses on life in the accident and emergency department for King’s College Hospital.

One think that struck me about the language used by the staff when they are treating patients is the exacting nature of how they communicate.  There are no statements that could be mis-understood to reflect a better state of health in the patient than actually exists.  Blood pressure, pulse and responsive level stats all mean other staff members are completely aware of the health state of a patient.

Business could do well to pay attention to this level of clarity in their communication.  I am sure bosses would be better informed and be able to make better business decisions with the truth, rather than with ‘fluffed up’ and carefully worded reports about the health of other departments.

One area that often ‘fluffs-up’ the vital statistics is the sales function.  I don’t think that sales people are dis-honest, they just have a healthy dose of optimism, which can lead to prospect opportunities being flagged as healthy and ready for conversion when in reality they are dead and should be reconciled to the morgue.

With the end of the quarter only a few short weeks away, it’s worth examining your prospect list honestly and triaging what’s worth following up and what opportunities are no longer worth saving.

So, whether you have a dedicated sales function within your business or like most small businesses you have to don the sales hat yourself, here are some key questions you should be asking your prospects to ensure your pipeline is really healthy.

  1. Are we currently winning your business?  As I said, sales people are optimists and we are all guilty of hearing a little of what we want to hear, not actually what is said.  So if you want to know if you are at the head of the pack to win some business with a prospect, you need to ask them.  Outright.  Don’t dress it up and hide the question in a carefully veiled statement because you are afraid of the answer.  If it’s a no, it’s time to remove the prospect from your pipeline and focus elsewhere.
  2. What will prevent us from closing the deal this month?  This is a vital question if you want to understand the potential blockages you will need to manage to get the win into this quarter’s figures.  Best to find out now than on the last day of the month when you are chasing the close.
  3. Are the key decision makers available?  You may have got the new business agreed but the business is not closed until it’s closed.  That may mean having your prospects boss sign the agreement or purchasing to agree the budget.  If one of those key people are sunning themselves on the beach somewhere you are likely to end up with a good start to next quarter and missing this one.

Having a clear picture of your sales pipeline and the true health of your prospects gives you a much better chance of achieving that important end of quarter result.  Ensure you are clear about what’s an opportunity and what’s not by asking these types of questions.

For details of how IntouchCRM can help you manage your sales pipeline and team interaction, check out the Leads and Sales section on our support site.

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How contests can drive your landing page conversion rate skyward

May 31, 2013 by Leave a comment

I recently came across this infographic from Incentivibe who offer contest services through a shared commitment model for businesses.  The company analyised data over 100 landing pages with over a million visitor interactions so you can be sure that the data pool is of a good size!

The main points that came out from the study was that Sunday became the best conversion day from visitors to leads and 11pm the best time.

Now these are odd stats for conversions when we consider the known stats from a B2B marketing model, that driving conversion via email are best done mid week and either early morning or just after lunchtime.

My view on the discrepancy is that contests tend to appeal to us personally rather than professionally and therefore weekends are where we tackle personal matters and after a busy weekend, it’s often late at night when we pick up the laptop to check personal emails before the week starts.  Hence the 11pm being the highest converting time.

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It’s an interesting study and should make you consider testing some weekend emails, especially if your audience is predominantly B2C.  As with all marketing, it’s all about test and measure so make sure you dive into the reporting function of the email module to check your results for your audience.

For more information on how to make landing pages work for your business and some advice on landing page best practice, check out our resource center.

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Using webforms and landing pages for effective lead capture.

May 10, 2013 by Leave a comment

It’s a mystery to me why so man businesses direct leads and prospects to the company’s homepage.  The homepage is a lazy option for marketers and constitutes poor customer service.  It’s worth remembering where the company website originated.optimising landing pages

In the good ol’ pre-digital days when memo’s blocked your in-tray and the fax was still a marvel of technology, sales people used to present their wares with a company brochure.  If that sales person was any good at their job they kept control of the brochure during the presentation and asked some key questions to determine the clients interest area and then opened the brochure at those pages to talk through what their company could offer.  Only once they had satisfied the prospective buyers immediate needs did they move on to present the rest of the company range.  It was a guided tour through the company offering.  It would be a very poor salesperson that simply handed over the brochure to a prospective buyer and told them to hunt out the information they wanted.

As soon as the digital age started, marketing departments sought out clever web designers, gave them a copy of the company brochure and asked to have an online presence.  Thus the company website was born.

So why in the digital age do we always just hand over the brochure (website homepage) and ask the prospect to do all the hard work in finding the information they are interested in?

If we follow what was considered best practice from the pre-digital days then we should be directing interested prospects to particular pages on our website to find relevant information they are seeking and not simply to the homepage.  The main challenge in doing this is then understanding ‘who’ actually visited that page and encouraging them to express their interest.  So the solution is combining a subject specific webpage with a mechanism of information capture on that page so prospects can declare an interest in your product or service.  This is known as a landing page (somewhere for the prospect to land).

Landing pages serve a number of purposes;

  1. Provide specific information to prospects on a single subject / product
  2. Allow the prospect to request additional information on that area
  3. Give your business the opportunity to tailor the prospect experience
  4. Provide valuable information about the prospect so you can qualify them
  5. Help position you as an expert in your industry

So with all these wonderful benefits, how do you go about making sure your landing pages are performing well and optimised.  Here are some of they key steps you need to take to make sure your landing pages are converting visitors to leads.

Be specific and get to the point

When people visit your landing pages they are looking for specific information or a specific solution to their problem.  Make sure you landing page copy is short and to the point so visitors easily understand what information is available and what the next steps are you want them to take.  Attention spans are decreasing and prospects no longer have the time to trawl through reams of text to find what they want.

Be Consistent with your look

Often landing pages are structured differently to your main website pages but it’s important to keep the look and feel similar.  Visitors get confused easily if the branding on the page is different from what they expected.  This goes for your other online channels.  Make sure your social media pages and directory listings all have the same feel and represent your brand in the same way.

Don’t go mad with the graphics

Research shows that people are prepared to wait an average of 2 secs for your page to load.  Cluttering the landing page with lots of graphics can not only increase the load time of your webpages but also distract visitors and make them frustrated when trying to find what they are looking for.

Add social proof

You probably have some great testimonials from your customers and consumers today want to see 3rd party recommendations when evaluating a purchase so adding these to your landing pages will help conversions.  Remember to consider the points above and make sure you do not over clutter the page.

Test formatting options

Spending sometime on the formatting of your page will reap rewards in terms of conversions.  Having clearly identified headings and sub headings will help those visitors who scan read, identify the point of the page and your message.  Make sure the spacing in your body text is enough to ensure the page is easily readable and include bullets to reinforce your message rather than long paragraphs.

Use contrasting colours

Ensure your call to action and key points on the page can be easily identified by using contrasting colors on the page.  You will draw the eye of your visitor to the main points of your message easily and encourage them to take action.

Ask the right questions

It goes without saying that you should be embedding a webform generated by your email marketing and crm system on the page to capture information from visitors but take some time to think about what to ask on the form.  Along with the usual contact information such as name and email address, what other information is vital for you to qualify the prospect further.  You may find it useful to understand the industry they represent, the size of the company, how many employees they have or what timescales they are thinking of regarding purchasing your product or service.  Getting some vital lead information at this stage will help you ensure your follow up is relevant and meaningful.  Be aware that if you ask for too much information then you can run the risk of scaring your prospects away.

For more information and advice on creating webforms within the Intouch CRM system and landing pages in general, check out our resources pages in the support site.

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Email stats still the top metric to track for marketers

April 25, 2013 by Leave a comment

Email marketing is still popular with marketers and small businesses as a method of communicating your marketing message out to your audience. We are seeing investment in email marketing set to rise over the next 12 months and this trend is backed up by a recent report from Marketing Sherpa.

A recent survey amongst marketers asked them the key channels they track on a regular basis to determine the success of their campaigns.  The winner by a long way was email marketing, as you can see from the chart below.

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With 63% of respondents commenting that the number one marketing channel they track is email marketing, it’s no surprise to see the growth of email marketing across different industries.

For me I am delighted to see that tracking conversions from calls to action is also at the top of the list.  Capturing lead information from your website in exchange for some useful information and then sending specific emails to that prospect based on their area of interest, will deliver enormous returns, if you take the time to consider your prospect and their needs. The days of traditional ‘blast’ emails to your whole database are thankfully ending and marketers are now becoming more savvy about what content they send to individuals.

Social marketing is now regularly showing up as a meaningful marketing metric and shows that brands and businesses alike are paying attention to how customers and prospects choose to interact with us.

No longer is there a need to drive all our contacts into our email marketing database.  Marketers are now understanding their ‘total reach’, which includes email marketing databases, social network connections and blog subscribers.  Consumers don’t want to be leveraged into a certain marketing channel and are choosing to interact with brands across different medium.  Try to make sure your communication reflects this trend in consumer engagement.

With email marketing still taking centre stage as a marketing channel, it’s important to understand some of the key metrics you can determine from email campaigns.  Here are a few of the key metrics we encourage intouchcrm users to adopt.

  1. Click through rate:  This is now becoming more of benchmark to tell you about the engagement you drive from your email marketing campaigns rather than the more traditional ‘open rates’.  The issue with ‘open rate’ metrics is that part of your audience may have seen the message but are not showing up as an ‘open’ due to reading the email in preview panes and not downloading images.  Open rates can still provide you with a guide but don’t reply on them as a hard metric to success.
  2. Device:  Looking at the devices that people read your email should always be on your list of metrics.  With the growth of tablets and smartphones it’s important to understand how your readers are choosing to consume your content.  If you knew that 60% of your readers chose to read the email on a phone screen, would that change what you said or how you laid out your email?
  3. Social Sharing: Checking to see if you email has been shared will tell you if you are reaching a wider audience than those you physically send the email to.  A good benchmark of how valuable your audience found the content.
  4. Bounce Rates: Check your bounce rates regularly to ensure that ‘old’ email address from your customers or fans.  It’s worth following up with some of those whose email has bounced to check if they have changed their email address.  They could now be missing out on your messages.

If you are looking to maximise your email marketing results or are looking at email marketing as a possible new channel for your business then checkout our guide on How to Execute & Measure Successful Email Marketing.

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Designing Killer Email Campaigns All Year Round

April 23, 2013 by Leave a comment

It seems to go without saying that the better built your email campaigns are, the better they will perform. So if you’re looking to have an incredible 2013, how do you design and build meaningful messages that will have the most value to your readers?british-design-classics

We’re here to answer that! At intouch, we offer A-Z email marketing services including crafting killer campaigns and wonderful design templates giving yourself the best possible chance of optimising your results.

Here are some designing and building do’s and don’ts to help you remain memorable and special to your subscribers.

Designing do’s…

  • Keep important content “above the fold.” Whether it’s thanking them for being a loyal subscriber or offering an exclusive deal, make sure you’ve managed to grab your reader with the most important or appealing content very close to the top of the campaign.
  • Use tables, not divs for HTML layout. Email client support for padding margin, positioning and float is so inconsistent that using divs would cause huge problems. All of the email clients render tables correctly, so keep it simple and save yourself the trouble.
  • Keep the width below 650px. Since most people are skimming and scanning and using preview pane to do so, it gives you a smaller window of both space and time to play with. So use this smaller real estate to your advantage and craft more effective messaging.
  • Remember that images might be invisible. Since most clients block images, keep in mind how your email will be displayed with all the images removed.
  • Make it easy to unsubscribe. Provide an easy way for users to remove themselves. For, it’s not only just irritating, it’s actually illegal.
  • Create a plain text email. The plain text email acts as a fallback for your recipients who, for one reason or another, don’t have access to a graphical client to view their emails. It’s safest to keep your maximum line length to 80 characters or below. We actually take the complication out of this by adding a line to show you the character limit as you edit.
  • Test, test, test. Be sure to test your campaign in as many clients as possible.

Designing don’ts…

  • Overdo it with images. Email images increase the size of the email, which will get blocked by some email clients. With that in mind, keep as much of your content as text. Your readers might not see your message if it’s an image that’s blocked by the email client.
  • Assume your subscriber is a reader. Make sure that you don’t put your main message towards the end of your email.
  • Include fancy stuff. It’s wise to steer clear of Flash, Javascript, Active X, Video, etc. Including any of these in your email scripts in HTML will immediately get the attention of the spambot, which will identify them as potentially harmful. Flash is simply not supported by the vast majority of email clients and in most cases won’t even have an option to allow it to be displayed.

Getting the building basics right is crucial to a successful email campaign. With our help, you’ll be able to master this marketing platform and see the success of your customer relations and growth of your overall business.

For more on planning your email marketing campaigns in 2013, try our new email marketing campaign builder.  A complete tool that’s easy to use and will guide you through the steps to make your campaigns rock.

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Time Management Tools For Great Results

March 5, 2013 by Leave a comment

Do you feel in-box overwhelmed? Are you controlling your time, or is time controlling you?

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Even if you have a system of sorts, other daily interruptions like phone calls, “quick” questions, etc. can bog down work place productivity and make effective time management fly out the window. Yet, there is a way to make your system work better for you.

Taskpads and shared calendars are designed take the headache out of all your scheduling, so you can focus on your core business. Yet, are you making the most out of these time saving tools?

Whatever your current taskpad of choice, we feel things could be so much better for you, which is why we created our innovative, interactive calendar and taskpad tools to help you dig out of the time trench so you can focus on your core business.

How does it work? Let’s start with our shared calendar. We like to think of this feature as a smarter way to organise time. With just a few simple clicks, you’ll be able to keep all your appointments, meetings and projects in the calendar, set yourself deadlines and reminders and share with your team instantly, which coordinates perfectly with the taskpad function.

Our taskpad tool provides a powerful paperless alternative to messy scraps of paper, notes galore etc. It’s a pretty straightforward system that allows you to assign tasks to yourself or a member of your team including assigning job responsibilities, creating deadlines, editing tasks and setting up reminders as the project nears its completion date. In a nutshell, it’s an interactive, updatable online to do list.

And the best part, since it is an interactive, real-time tool, everyone on the team has an up to date view of progress at all times, which is extremely helpful as projects near its deadline.

We know getting organised is easier said than done, but we believe in making it that much more easier. If you’d like to test drive our innovative time management services, click below to get started.

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Making The Most With Multimedia In Emails

February 26, 2013 by Leave a comment

Email is a very fast and fleeting medium. Why? Well, the average time a marketer has to grab a user’s attention via email and convince them to take action is about 3-5 seconds.

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Not a whole lot of time, right? With all the skimmers and scanners out there, it’s a true art these days to engage a reader enough to interact with your campaign messaging and hopefully convert them from browsers to buyers.

In previous posts, we’ve discussed incorporating various strategies such as social email and Pinterest email marketing for boosting viewership. Because these methods are more image-based, they have been more successful in reaching short attention span subscribers and maximising results.

With that, we’d now like to discuss the importance of another emerging trend that’s hitting the image-based arena and making great waves in email marketing. We’re talking of course about incorporating video in email. This multi-media marketing allows people to instantly engage in a way they don’t often do with text and static images creating a unique and memorable experience.

You might be wondering, “If video is so effective in email marketing, then why haven’t more brands embraced it?”

Well, besides large file sizes bogging down download time, videos also created a deliverability nightmare of requiring the use of a 3rd party plug-in, like Flash or Quicktime, which is a significant security risk to email clients as they can sneak in viruses and malicious code creating a whole new set of problems.

In response to those opposed to video, two major technological advances, according to Marketingland, changed the face of video from less dangerous to more desirable.

The first occurred with the arrival of HTML5 and its shocking high number support of email clients. It eliminated the need for a 3rd party plug-in to almost all Web-based, mobile and desktop email clients making it more of a deliverability dream. HTML5 also allowed for the subscriber to select from a list of media to choose the best-supported format when an email is opened.

Overall, this technique virtually eliminated the risk of a poor video viewing experience.

The use of hosted, progressively downloaded video files marks the second advance in video email marketing. Progressive playback allows users to begin to watch a video without requiring them to download the entire file before it begins.

In addition to providing almost instant access to video playback on a desktop environment, it’s also fantastic for viewing on mobile devices with a 3G+ connection, which is great for mobile email marketing efforts, as almost a majority of emails are viewed via mobile.

For more on the hottest trends in email marketing, be sure to grab your complimentary eBook today.

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