Priceline is Following Me...Literally!

Several months ago I needed to book a hotel in Hollywood, CA near a client. I had never used Priceline before so I’d thought I’d give it a try. They found me a good deal at a hotel “nearby”. Long story short they ended up booking me into a hotel in Century City, which is nowhere near Hollywood.

As soon as I got the confirmation I called them and requested a refund, but despite 30 minutes of wrangling with the “manager” they refused to budge. I ended up paying for 2 hotel rooms that night. The hotel in Century City from Priceline and the hotel in Hollywood that I ended up booking on my own. Lesson learned – I will never use Priceline again. Ever.

Yesterday I needed to book a hotel in Palm Springs, near another client. I went online and did the usual searching, using Kayak, Travelocity, Expedia, etc.

Within 20 minutes I was shocked to receive an email from Priceline.com offering discounts on hotels in Palm Springs on the same days I was planning on being there. How did they know I was looking for a hotel in Palm Springs? How did they know which days I was going to be there?

As a marketing automation and Best Practices consultant I would be the last person to toss up the Big Brother argument for cookie tracking, but wow, this is the first time I’ve ever felt like Big Brother was actually watching me – stalking me almost.

If the email was from a company I would actually consider doing business with I wouldn’t mind, in fact I’d probably appreciate it, but what made this so unsettling is every time I even hear about Priceline it always reminds me of the money I lost.

Cookie Tracking

There has been a lot of discussion lately about cookie tracking as it relates to privacy issues vs. relevance.

In fact, in the EU, there is a new law which goes into effect in May that now requires websites to obtain a user's consent before even being allowed to install a tracking cookie. Yikes.



Summary

Marketing Automation and cookie tracking in particular make it easier to send “hey we just watched you online and boy do we have a deal for you” emails.

As more and more companies test these waters, it will be critical to everyone's success to make sure to also include as part of the process,  confirmation of a good relationship with the target just prior to sending the email. Otherwise we all run the risk of facing the same restrictive legislation the EU is about to face.


Key Takeaway
If the current state of the relationship is monitored, sending the right person the right message at the right time can be extremely effective in fostering a deeper, more personal relationship.

If the relationship is not considered, then it's like the ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend who won't stop following you. They’re stalking.

Visit my brand new website and learn more about data management.

Steve Kellogg
-Demand Generation/Marketing Automation Consultant, Astadia
-Eloqua Certified Marketing Best Practices Consultant

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What To Do When Your Webinar Ends in Disaster (A True Story)

After months of planning, preparation, content creation and all the other hard work that goes into creating a compelling webinar, the XYZ company (actual company name witheld) was finally ready to launch their very first webinar event.

The speaker was lined up, the slide presentation was finalized and the webinar vendor selected.

Thanks to some great marketing Best Practices work on our part (sameless Astadia plug :) there were 3 times as many registrations as the company ever expected. The virtual room was packed and everyone was ready to get started. Customary housekeeping announcements were made (be sure to mute your phone, there will be Q&A at the end, etc).

All was going brilliantly until about 10 minutes prior to the end of the webinar when a faint conversation started in the background on the webinar conference phone line. One of the participants forgot to mute their phone and his conversation with one of his employees was getting louder and louder.

The audience soon realized that the conversation he was having was a very personal HR discussion with an employee about their prolonged illness.

"Do you need to take an extended leave of absense?"

"What is your overal prognosis?"

 It was extremely uncomfortable for everyone to have to listen to, even briefly.

Now, normally the moderator would have simply done a "MUTE ALL", however she couldn't because the presenter was calling in remotely on the phone and of course that would have muted him as well.

Since this was their very first webinar the moderator never thought that simply having the presenter dial in as an attendee would be an issue. Obviously a lesson well learned and never repeated.

But it's not what this company didn't do that is the point of this post, it is what they did to recover from this that set them apart.

Despite numerous attempts to get this person's attention and get him to mute his line, it quickly became clear the only solution was to stop the webinar. Since there was only 10 minutes left, it didn't make sense for everyone to have to hang up and redial back in, this time with the presenter able to mute all.

Instead, the moderator apologized profusely, ended the webinar immediately, and made a promise to make it up to everyone.

Here is exactly how the XYZ Company did that:

1. They called each and every attendee and personally apologized for the dissruption
2. They sent out an email with an invitation to a live "encore" presentation to be held within 2 days
3. They automatically entered all attendees into a contest, giving away a new iPad2 at the end of the encore presentation to one lucky winner
4. They also offered a comprehensive, on-site technology cost-audit, no matter where the customer was located - all at no charge

The good-will the XYZ Company generated by their actions as a result of this disaster did more than any webinar content ever could in building a positive lasting impression.

So often we hear about companies who seek to hide or flat out deny obvious product or service glitches, but in this case, the XYZ Company turned what was a total disaster into an incredible opportunity to build both trust and value.

By the end of the encore webinar, many that attended were ready to buy.

Those that didn't buy either complimented the XYZ company to other colleagues or sent complimentary emails to the XYZ Company directly. Some even blogged about the experience, including me.

The original webinar was meant to communicate how great the XYZ company is. But it was the actions they took after the disaster that proved it.

ACTIONS ARE THE BEST CONTENT
Chances are, you may never have to expereience anything like this, but I encourage you to actually embrace disasters if and when they occur.

Social Media is the collection plate of horrible experiences, which is why so many companies are reluctant to jump in. They are afraid of negative comments. But if actions really are the best content, then what a perfect arena to join and actively look for opportunities to build trust, in part by repairing trust in front of others.

Visit my brand new website and learn more about social media marketing.


Steve Kellogg
-Demand Generation/Marketing Automation Consultant, Astadia
-Eloqua Certified Marketing Best Practices Consultant

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How Many Invitation Emails Does it Take to Get a Webinar Registration?

To help answer this question, we (Astadia) recently had a chance to reconfirm initial tests we performed several years ago, but with some interesting new results.

We wanted to know:

• How many webinar invitations do people ignore before finally signing up?
• How many webinar invitations will people tolerate receiving before unsubscribing?
• How long or how soon before the webinar do invitation(s) work best in generating registration signups?

Here are the results:

• 2 weeks out = 21 submissions – Subject Line: Register Today
• 1 week out = 55 submissions - Subject Line: There’s Still Time to Register
• 3 days out = 34 submissions-- Subject Line: Last Chance to Register
• 1 day out = 37 submissions -- Subject Line: You Have 24 Hours Left to Register
• Day of Webinar = 46 submissions -- Subject Line: You Have 30 Minutes Left to Register

Key Takeaways:

• 19% of registrants waited until the day before the webinar to register
• 24% of registrants waited until the day of the webinar to register
• 43% in total waited to within 24 hours of the webinar to register
• Adding urgency to the Subject Line increases conversion
• There was no spike in unsubscribes whatsoever throughout the entire invitation process. In fact the unsubscribe rate remained below industry averages.

While these results only reflect what worked best for this particular client, I'd love to hear what metrics you have captured and what timing is working best for you.

NOTE: We were unable to test invitations sent further than 2 weeks out as the webinar content didn't get finalized until then.

Visit my brand new website and learn more about content marketing.

Steve Kellogg
-Demand Generation/Marketing Automation Consultant, Astadia
-Eloqua Certified Marketing Best Practices Consultant

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Building a Nurturing Fast Lane

Nurturing programs do a great job of building relationships, from tire kicker all the way to ready to buy leads.

There are those rare leads however that are impatient and are ready to buy sooner, sometimes much sooner. Your nurturing pace is too slow for them and they are ready for contact NOW.

While lead scoring programs monitor and report on these, anyone who indicates that they want contact immediately, should get contact immediately – like in the next 5 minutes. Lead scoring programs are fast, but not that fast!

The Nurturing Fast Lane

it’s surprising how many leads actually take action if you give them the opportunity to request contact immediately, where it makes sense. We all know that just slapping a Contact Me link on your website usually produces nada, but presenting a way for impatient leads to make contact at the end of an engaging asset often yields better results.

Try adding a Contact Me Now link at the end of every asset in your nurturing program. For example, a link at the end of an entertaining video, an informative whitepaper or a relevant case study. Add this fast lane option to the end of each asset you deliver, even if it’s just an email.

It often relieves friction if you give them a choice of how they want to be contacted. Something like this:

Yes I want to learn more:

BTW: This usually also gets you a valid phone number if they choose that option. Expect roughly 75% of responses to want email contact vs. phone contact, but hey, its better than wanting no contact!

Rely on form notifications to get this into the hands of sales immediately. Time is of the essensce. An immediate repsonse is always ideal. Sales love talking with leads who are engaged right now.

If you don’t have a fast lane built into every nurturing touch point, try adding it. I’ve seen results anywhere from 0.5% to 3% response rates! The more interesting, informative, relevant and sometimes entertaining the content, the better the conversion. The story of our lives.

Visit my brand new website and learn more about lead nurturing.

Steve Kellogg
-Demand Generation/Marketing Automation Consultant, Astadia
-Eloqua Certified Marketing Best Practices Consultant

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How to Make Supply Chain Management (and your product) Funny

Killer content must be:

• Relevant
• Interesting
• Informative
• Entertaining

Entertaining? Yes, according to the new book "Content Rules" by Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman.

I couldn't agree more.

Think about it, as more and more companies adopt marketing automation, more of the content we all start receiving will be relevant. Geez, when everyone is relevant, now what? Now how do you get their attention?

 
Get ahead of the curve as an early adopter of marketing automation by ensuring your content is interesting, informative AND entertaining.
 
WHERE TO BEGIN?
So question #1 is which content should I focus on making entertaining? The answer is, which content is currently converting the best? (For those who have adopted Revenue Performance Management, which content is producing the most revenue?
 
I took a poll of our own Astadia marketing content and here's what I found.
 

Video outperformed all other types of content by a large margin. In fact the least-watched video still outperformed the best viewed non-video asset by a mile. In addition, we found that:

• Those watching a video watched more than 1 video
• Video links got higher SE results than whitepaper, case study or other asset links

Which of your assets currently work the best? Is it video as well?

So why are videos so popular? I think for two main reasons:

1. They take very little effort to watch (unlike Case Studies or Whitepapers)
2. Smart Phones make it very easy to watch video, and Smart Phone useage is exploding

So how do you make an entertaining video? Here's a perfect example:

• COMPANY: Kinaxis, Inc. A Supply Chain Management Company
• CHALLENGE: Tell potential customers how simple their Supply Chain Management Solution is to implement
• POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS: Write a white paper or a case study.
• FINAL SOLUTION: Create a funny video instead:

https://community.kinaxis.com/docs/DOC-5353

 

 Once you've watched the above video, check out the follow-up video. It's even funnier!

https://community.kinaxis.com/docs/DOC-5415

I would very likely forward these videos to friends and colleagues (just like I'm forwarding to you).

As more and more B2B companies begin to "see the light" and adopt marketing automation, it becomes more important than ever to stand out. Being relevant won't be enough anymore - it's probably not enough now.

I highly recommend reading Content Rules. It's an excellent tactical how-to guide in creating your own killer content.

Visit my brand new website and learn more about content marketing.

Steve Kellogg
-Demand Generation/Marketing Automation Consultant, Astadia
-Eloqua Certified Marketing Best Practices Consultant

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Share the IT Love This Valentine's Day

Sending flowers or candy to your IT Department may not be on your love radar this Valentine’s Day but you might want to consider it. Why? Read on:

According to a recent survey by Alterian, 67% of marketers experience friction with IT in both selecting and implementing social or online marketing tools.

So why all the friction? Well, look at your requests from IT’s perspective. When IT receives your request, they have to consider:

• Reliability issues
• Duplication of existing processes or effort
• Compliance issues
• Incompatibility issues
• Security issues

You can’t blame them, since they will usually end up owning and maintaining your requests ongoing. Unfortunately, this usually means delays in implementation, push back in functionality or outright refusals to move forward.

I see the results of this quite often in a registration form. Marketing wants a simple registration form to download a whitepaper. IT wants to incorporate the company’s existing registration process to comply with all the concerns listed above. So marketing ends up with something like this:

Download your complimentary Whitepaper here:

If you don’t already have a login, you have to create a new account, which often includes creating a new username and password. This is usually emailed to you. So what should have taken less than 15 seconds ends up taking 5-10 minutes. Geez, all that just to get a whitepaper?

IT is happy. Marketing is unhappy. Leads are very unhappy. Win/Loose/Loose.

I recommend a compromise.

For these types of activities:

• Trial software downloads
• Customer Portal access
• Support access
• Etc.

 Use IT’s existing form process.

For marketing-specific assets, such as: 

• Whitepapers
• Videos
• Webinar/event registrations
• Etc.

Use Eloqua’s built-in form/landing page functionality.

Now, where it gets tricky is where the form field values on the marketing form are different than on the IT form. For example if you want to ask a lead scoring question such as Job Title on your marketing asset form, you’ll likely use a picklist. This same question may also exist on IT’s form but it may be and open text field. So you’ll have to go through each form field for both forms and make sure they are all in sync. You’ll also have to consider form update rules – which field from which source overwrites existing values in CRM.

So make an effort to share the love with your IT Department this Valentine's Day. They don't get much recognition so you'll win big points. And acknowledging their own pain can help you alleviate some of your own.

BTW: Check out Scott Brinker’s Chief Marketing Technologist post about shadow IT. He makes some interesting additional recommendations.

P.S. In February of last year, I wrote a blog called Share The Love This Valentine’s Day which was about sharing the love with sales. To be honest, I think sharing the love with IT is actually the priority, otherwise you won’t have enough form submissions to give sales the BIG love.

Visit my brand new website and learn more about Data Management.

Steve Kellogg
-Demand Generation/Marketing Automation Consultant, Astadia
-Eloqua Certified Marketing Best Practices Consultant

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What's Wrong with This Picture?

I was surprised when I saw the results of a recent Email Benchmark Survey from Marketing Sherpa. It shows the effectiveness of email marketing at achieving objectives. The top 3 were:

1. Increasing website traffic
2. Building Brand Awareness
3. Increasing Sales Revenue

I realize that these may not have initially been the goals set out for email marketing, but the trouble with these top 3 is that they are all typical results of batch and blast email marketing.

 #1. Increasing Website traffic – I'm surprised this was #1. While generating known visitors back to a website is always good, it would not likely be #1 for those who have adopted marketing automation. Email recipients have likely been to the website at least once. So generating the same eyeballs to your site is probably not as ideal as generating net new eyeballs to your website.

Email is not the best solution for this. Social media, Blogs, PCC and organic search will get you further every time obviously. Don’t get me wrong. Getting someone to click through an email to a specific, relevant landing page with a form on it probably counts as increasing website traffic, but increasing website traffic wouldn’t be my #1 objective. Yet it was the #1 most successful email objective in the survey.

#2. Building Brand Awareness – Yikes, this is #2? Someone once explained to me that even though 80% of their emails never get opened, the brand awareness that emails generate from exposure to the FROM and SUBJECT lines were effective at building brand. Can you imagine telling your CEO, "Unfortunately most people won't open our emails, but at least they see our name." You might as well start clearing out your desk. Marketing automation practitioners would likely focus on sending more relevant messages that actually increase opens and subsequent click through rates.

#3: Increasing Sales Revenue – A worthy objective but the measure of success may be suspect. Sending an email to sell a widget might generate a temporary lift in widget sales but as soon as the widget emails decrease, so do widget sales. This is a common B2C scenario. In B2B, it obviously takes more than email to drive sales. There’s usually a whole host of assets that contribute: webinars, white papers, video, tradeshows, etc. And of course the holy grail is an accurate method of attributing revenue across all marketing touches.

So what might this survey look like if B2B marketers who have adopted marketing automation were to respond?

Top B2B Marketing Automation Email Objectives: Align with the goal of the CEO. How?

1. Use email to drive form conversions
2. Use email to drive segmentation (through topic click throughs and/or progressive profiling)
3. Use email as feeders to nurturing and scoring programs
4. Use Autoresponder emails to fast track the next call to action

What are your top 3 email objectives in 2012?

Visit my brand new website and learn more about Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI)

Steve Kellogg
-Demand Generation/Marketing Automation Consultant, Astadia
-Eloqua Certified Marketing Best Practices Consultant

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