Pulling the Trigger on email marketing

Email marketing has come a long way since it began receiving the attention of b2b marketers in and around the year 2000.  Savvy marketers realized the power and convenience, not to mention the low cost, that email marketing afforded.  Eleven years removed, we have seen email marketing’s use in b2b literally explode.  Today, you are not in business if you are not communicating digitally with your clients and prospects.  With all of the hype that newer channels such as social media receive, email may seem a bit antiquated as a useful  marketing tool.  Quite the contrary!  Different uses of email marketing have gained traction within the last several years and loosely fall into the category called “Nurture Marketing”.
The term “Nurture Marketing” is a bit broad and mis-used in some cases, leading to confusion and reticence in those who may otherwise benefit from the techniques employed by nurture marketing.   This blog post is meant to introduce you to the concept of  trigger-based email marketing as it relates to B2B lead gen and Marketing to Sales integration in CRM.
Trigger-based emails get their name from the fact that and email is “triggered” by some activity.  Trigger emails began as auto-responders in eCommerce.  They were used to send validation of account creation and confirmation of purchase details.  These auto-responders were an effective way of securing a login to a web/commerce application.  Today, trigger-based emails are used as a core component of nurture marketing campaigns in b2b.  There are a myriad of ways to use trigger based emails and this post will explore some of the more common and easy to implement campaigns driven by trigger based emails.
Defining a trigger-based email:  A trigger-based email is a personalized and automated email communicaton sent to an individual when an action occurs.  Actions can be defined as form submissions, field value changes in CRM, accessing materials via the web…and many more.  The trigger email is pre-built with content that is relevant to the action (trigger).  The email is then activated so when the criteria, a simple form of workflow, is met, the email is physically executed.  Triggers are typically tied to a particular marketing asset (white paper) and  include a moderate to extensive amount of personalization within the subject line/body of the email.  Personalization involves the insertion of merge fields for values such as name, company, sales person-signature.
Again, triggers have their origins in eCommerce with Auto-responders.  Marketers began using the auto-responders for collateral fulfillment.  Today’s savvy b2b marketers have taken triggers to the next level with multi-step and multi-variate trigger emails.  The simplest way to define these trigger campaigns is to think of a string of trigger emails that start with “first action” and continue with timed emails that contain content relevant to the first email.  Each subsequent email tends to be slightly more detailed than the last and the “call to actions” contained within the emails become more direct and sales oriented.
The value of trigger-based email campaigns to b2b lead generation cannot be understated.  Think of your website as a lead generation entity in and of itself.  As leads interact with your website, trigger-based email campaigns execute when high-value actions occur.  Imagine you have a white paper posted on your site and the white paper is specific to a vertical market your company sells into.  A well built, and suprisngly easy campaign may look something like this.

1. A prospect downloads a white paper on your website
2. A trigger email sends a link to download the white paper to the prospect
3. Three trigger-days later, a complimentary marketing asset is offered via trigger email
4. Five trigger days later, the prospect receives a personal email from a sales person offering a product brochure
5. Seven trigger days later, the prospect receives another email  that invites them to participate in a discovery call

This simple yet effective string of communications is pre-built and 100% automated.  It ensures that each incoming web lead receives a high-level of touches in a short period of time.  No leads fall through the cracks!  As the prospect interacts with the email campaign by opening, clicking…etc, the interactions are logged to the lead record in Dynamics and the sales person receives email alerts if and when the prospect comes back to the website….triggering a phone call.
You can take this a step further and apply workflow that creates sales tasks such as follow up calls, assigned to a rep in CRM if and when the prospect continues to interact with you via the trigger campaign.
Put simply, this is a b2b marketer’s dream!  The workflow is easy to set up and very logical.  Marketing can be sure that proper follow up is occuring for all leads and lead leakage is virtually eliminated from the equation.  Sales is happy because they are communicating with prospects without lifting a finger…freeing them up to work on deal closure.
SalesFUSION works with many companies in this fashion.  The results from trigger based emails are telling.  Statistically speaking, an email blast or bulk email campaign will typically produce open rates (percent of people who receive the email and physically open it) of 4% to 8%.  Those are good averages.  Trigger based campaigns, on the other hand, enjoy open rates of 35%, 50% and 65% on average.  While you may not be sending thousands of emails at one time, the nurturing effect of trigger based emails means more meaningful touches with valuable prospects.
About SalesFUSION:  SalesFUSION provides an enterprise-class b2b marketing solution that is directly integrated into Dynamics CRM.  A Five-Star rated app on PinPoint, SalesFUSION delivers all of the key functionality b2b marketers need in today’s fast-paced web 2.0 world, at a price that companies of all sizes can afford.  Learn about our marketing to Dynamics CRM work in our online resource center.

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SalesFUSION Scores Breakout Year In 2010, With Customer Count, Partner Base Climbing

SalesFUSION Scores Breakout Year In 2010, With Customer Count, Partner Base Climbing

Using Trigger/Nurture-based email campaigns to improve PPC Lead Conversion

Pay Per Click usage in B2B environment is growing rapidly. Spending on networks such as AdWords is becoming a significant part of the B2B marketer’s Budget. Pay Per Click, or any online form of paid advertising, has a single goal – Capture the lead information and begin the b2b lead qualification process. As a marketer, when you pay for an ad, clicks or conversions, you are essentially purchasing a highly targeted lead list, one lead at a time.

When you engage in any form of online paid marketing activity, you need to follow some basic steps and answer some key questions before you begin placing ads and paying for ad-space in online properties.

• Have a clear Call To Action – every ad you place must have a clear call to action. This should be well defined in the Ad and it should be clearly and concisely communicated to anyone clicking on the Ad.

• Have a quality lead capture form or landing page (tips for landing page/lead capture form is included in the next section)

• Have a well defined lead follow up plan. Are you going to email fulfill the offer from the Ad? Are you going to call all leads? Send them confirmation emails? If you will be triggering emails, how is that process handled? If you’re offering a high-value asset (which you should) such as a white paper/research paper/case study, then you should ensure you capture valid email addresses from the leads and fulfill the asset as a follow up email. This will ensure you get better email data from responders.

Implementing Trigger Email Campaigns

Trigger emails are simple auto-responder emails that are tied to and execute from the submission of a lead capture form. Lead capture forms that are tied to an enterprise marketing automation solution, such as SalesFUSION360, provide for a high-degree of flexibility and automation in responding to online Advertising leads. A trigger email is defined by the content specificity and one-one nature of the email.

Triggers can be as simple as an A/B follow up email path – assuming there are two possible content paths. Content paths can be broken out to the nth degree, depending on the variables in the form’s questions. Most content-driven email triggered from multiple choice responses to questions.

By pre-planning simple trigger-based follow up email campaigns such as the one above, you will greatly improve your ability to convert leads from online advertising to active leads to be worked by your sales team. Statistically, open rates for content-specific trigger emails are more the 3 times higher than email blasts. We commonly see open rates as high as 50-60% in content-relevant triggers. This assumes the triggers are sent within 3-5 business days from the initial inquiry.

Trigger based emails, as a response channel for PPC and online advertising is a powerful solution for your business. It allows you to cover more ground, automate the follow up process to ensure EVERY lead is touched and maximize the pre-qualification touch-points prior to sending a lead over to sales.

Tips for better trigger emails….

• Personalize the subject line – include the recipients First Name in the subject line and make the subject line informal. For Example: Subject “Hi Kevin, please check out some follow up materials from your recent inquiry”.

• Reference the original asset download in the subject line or early in the email.

• Send both text and html versions

• Ensure you don’t ask for the same information twice – when sending a link to another download page, leverage advanced dialogs to auto-fill known information on the form.

The B2B Pay Per Click marketer’s mantra

When creating a PPC campaign – remember these key points and you will perform better:

• Sending clicks to home page is a complete waste of time and budget

• The only objective of a PPC advertisement in B2B is lead capture

• Tracking ROI with no landing pages is not possible

• In B2B the lead capture is the beginning of the campaign…not the end

• Preserve the Lead Source at all costs! Ensure you can track lead source in CRM

• Think of your PPC Campaigns as the purchase of a highly targeted lead list – one lead at a time

Optimized Landing Pages

Before creating your ads and ad groups and planning great campaigns in AdWords, you should start with an optimized landing page. An optimized landing page or lead capture page is the destination for the “Click” in your PPC advertisement. Clicks that are sent to the company home page are, for lack of a better term, a complete waste of budget dollars. If you DO NOT have a landing page for your ad, turn your ad off and create one. To create a landing page that optimizes click through, follow these simple steps.

1. Keyword Matching – the header and URL should have an exact keyword match to the keyword(s) you have assigned to an ad group. This will ensure better positioning. Whatever your keyword is, repeat the keyword exactly in the header of your landing page.

2. Keep the Landing page simple – remove or greatly understate external links in the landing page. People are often tempted to have links to the home page and other assets in the landing page. Resist putting any external links in a landing page as it reduces conversion.

3. Keep surveys and forms simple – only ask the questions you need to know to begin a digital conversation

4. Keep the form/survey on the same page – don’t require the lead to click a link to get to the survey/form as it negatively impacts conversion rates.

5. Keep the form/survey above the fold

6. Provide a brief “privacy policy” on the form

7. Explain exactly what the lead will get in exchange for filling out the form

8. Provide value to the lead in exchange for filling out the form – white paper, research…etc.

9. Direct to a thank you page upon form submission

10. Reinforce that they are getting what they asked for in the thank you page

11. Use the thank you page as a cross-promotional page – offer complimentary assets, link to the home page…etc. It’s OK to have lots of information and links in the thank-you page because you’ve already captured what you need.