Laurie Beasley, president of Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., will be an opening speaker at B2B Expo in Los Angeles, October 2, 2019.  The topic will be “Meeting Maker Marketing Campaigns: How to Connect Sales with Anyone”.  In this session, Ms. Beasley is going to discuss an approach to Account Based Marketing (ABM) that can land your sales team appointments with virtually any key decision maker. She’ll share how to incentivize prospects into WANTING to get on the phone for a demo or sales appointment. And walk you through a marketing campaign that integrates dimensional direct mail, tele-prospecting, email, and social touches to deliver record numbers of demo appointments for a major software company.  Her session will be right after the first keynotes at 10:15 on Wednesday, October 2, 2019.

For free tickets and event info for B2B Marketing Expo go here.

About Laurie Beasley

LAURIE B. BEASLEY is co-founder and president of Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., which provides services in inbound and outbound marketing including:  content creation, email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), website design, media planning/public relations, direct mail marketing, lead generation and nurture campaigns, marketing automation management, and database management for both B2B and B2C companies. Ms. Beasley serves as president and online marketing certification instructor for the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California. She also speaks on online marketing and demand generation topics for several marketing organizations, including the DMA, BMA, and AMA.

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Twenty-five is a number with a lot of significance in our world. It is the atomic number of manganese, it is the number reserved for the player deemed the best “slugger” on a baseball team, and it is the name of the national board game of India. To the hardworking men and women of the Beasley Direct and Online Marketing agency, however, twenty-five carries a much higher level of significance.

A Walk through History

The Beasley Direct and Online Marketing agency was founded in 1990 by Laurie Beasley after a successful career as a marketing manager for Borland International. After leaving Borland, Laurie began to consult for other software and hardware companies who all recognized the need for an upgraded revenue model. This was rewarding consulting work; however, Laurie began to recognize that companies were having trouble executing the plans. Direct marketing is both science and art, and companies were struggling with both aspects. Eventually, Laurie decided to switch from just being the consultant who built models, to a full-service agency that built the model and executed it using database marketing.

In 2001-2002 the U.S. experienced the dot-com crash. Many agencies went out of business then, but Beasley Direct and Online Marketing thrived by adding a full set of services to help companies get their digital marketing programs up and running, including websites, email programs, and online advertising.

In 2008 the world experienced the Great Recession. Many more agencies went out of business during that year and the years which followed. The members of Beasley Direct jumped in and helped companies shift a heavy proportion of their marketing budgets to online, including search and social media.

Beasley Directs Growth along with Marketing Advances

Despite the challenges of the past, technology moves ever forward. With the arrival of the Internet, a huge shift occurred in marketing. To stay ahead of the curve, Beasley Direct added creative and technical services for developing websites and online advertising. As Internet marketing has progressed, Beasley Direct fought to stay ahead with the addition of sophisticated email and search marketing services, and more recently content marketing and social media services.

“Marketing managers must understand and use a wide array of tools…. We help clients avoid letting the tools replace or hinder good strategy, and to the relief of most of our clients, we help in the day-to-day optimal use of the tools.”–Laurie Beasley, President of Beasley Direct and Online Marketing

With all these advances in marketing technology, a huge need grew in the industry for training marketers to keep up and stay ahead of changes. To meet this growing need, Laurie Beasley created and managed a Certificate in Direct and Online Marketing at San Jose State Professional Studies, and then cloned this program at UCLA Extension, UC Santa Cruz Extension, UC Berkley Extension, and the Online Marketing Institute. Many of the Beasley Direct consulting staff members now teach in these programs.

What Does the Future Hold for Beasley Direct and Online Marketing?

“I believe the future of marketing will evolve with social media and the internet. Mobile marketing will continue to force innovation on marketers to keep their websites, search and social media effective for the mobile user. The introduction of mobile apps, kiosks, and third screen interactivity will provide many more avenues for marketing messaging and lead generation.”–Laurie Beasley

A Message to Other Marketers

“Marketing never stands still, and you need an agency that will keep you ahead of the curve. Beasley Direct has stayed far ahead of the learning curve, adding technical and creative skills to an ever-growing list of media channels.”–Laurie Beasley

With a future that includes wearable technology and a technologically desensitized population, the fight to stay ahead of marketing curves will never be over. However, you can bet that Beasley Direct and Online Marketing will be at the front lines, ready to provide absolute top notch services.

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Elizabeth Beasley, Account Manager, Beasley Direct Marketing

This post was authored by Elizabeth A. Beasley, Account Manager, Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc.

Elizabeth Beasley serves as an account manager at Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc www.BeasleyDirect.com   Elizabeth manages new client onboarding and accounts, social media, corporate presentations, corporate website, and database maintenance. She also serves as an account manager for the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California www.DMAnc.org, managing event logistics, registration and promotion. She holds a B.A. in Communications from National University.

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The DMA sponsored the direct marketing response rates survey , along with Demand Metric Research Corporation, from December 2014 to January 2015 with a total of 612 responses collected, 485 of which provided usable data. The purpose of collecting this data is to track the Response Rates of different marketing avenues from a very extensive sample size. This data will allow marketers to compare their success with results from other companies and determine where to concentrate their efforts next. Below are some highlights from the report.

Mobile

Of all the samples in the Direct Marketing Response Rates Survey mobile marketing was the smallest. According to the survey graph showing the amount companies reported using each marketing medium, picture above, only 18% of companies are including mobile in their campaigns. The survey participants reported their primary use of mobile advertising campaigns are to make a direct sale (33%), followed by lead generation (26%) and driving brand awareness (26%). However, about 42% of the survey participants didn’t know the click-through rate for mobile ad campaigns, which made it hard to report on the response rates.

Email

Survey Participants did not have the same trouble reporting on their email campaign response rates, as with mobile. In fact, email retains the top spot in terms of the number of organizations that reported using it at 82% use in promotional campaigns. However, Click through rates were lowest for lead generation emails sent to prospect lists (3-4%) and highest for B-to-B emails sent to house lists (17-18%). Open rates ranged from a low of 7-8% for emails sent to prospect lists to drive traffic. Ironically, emails sent to house lists to drive traffic enjoyed the highest open rate at 23-24%.

Online Display

Slightly over half of companies report that lead generation is their primary purpose for campaigns. Conversion rates were lowest among digital media types, at between 1.1% and 1.5%, which is a 17% decrease from the previous years. The low click-through and conversion rates likely contribute to the highest CPA among digital media types in the study, ranging from $41 to $50.

Paid Search

The use of paid search has gone done almost 10% in use by companies since 2012, according to the report. Two-thirds of the survey participants who use paid search reported using both brand and generic keywords in their paid search campaigns. Conversion rates ranged from 2 to 6%, with an overall rate of 4% for branded and 3% for generic keywords.

Paid search was reported to most frequently be used by survey participants in mixed B-to-B/B-to-C campaigns (30%), followed closely by B-to-C campaigns (29%). Branded keywords in the B-to-C environment enjoyed the highest click-through rate at 5-5.9%, while generic keywords in the B-to-B environment had the lowest click-through rate at 2-2.9%.

Social Media

Social media, which was included for the first time in the Response Rate Survey, had one of the lower click-through rates among digital media types at between 2.1 and 2.5%. However, a good 37% of companies reported not knowing the click-through rates for their social media ad campaigns, so there is a significant amount of unaccounted for data.

Behind mobile, social media shows the greatest projected usage increase of this year, with 64% of survey participants indicating plans to grow social media advertising in the next year. Virtually everyone who uses social media advertising also uses mail, and over half also uses direct mail, online display and paid search.

Telephone

The primary reported purpose of telephone campaigns is almost equally split between direct sales (41%) and lead generation (37%) The response rate for telephone – between 9 and 10% – is one of the strongest of any media type in this survey, regardless of whether house or prospect lists are in use. Only 4% of survey participants report plans to decrease their tele-marketing in the next 12 months, while 36% report usage will remain steady, and 57% plan to increase their telephone usage.

Direct Mail

Over 41% of survey participants reported using Direct Mail as part of their campaigns, which is the second highest amount of any of the listed marketing types. Over half of the respondents for Direct Mail reported a monthly direct mail volume of 100,000 or less, with the median monthly mail volume falling in the range of 50,000 or less. The survey results showed that the median response rates for house lists are at 3.73%, while the median response for prospect lists is at 1.00%.

We Have All This Data, So What Now?

The data gathered by the DMA Response Rate Report 2015 shows the extent to which customers are responding to different types of marketing efforts. The purpose of gathering all this data is to help marketers plan campaigns that will get best response results for their company. The modern marketer is more likely to use more than one type of advertising, and in fact, just 35% of this study’s respondents claim to use just a single one, and that one is most often email. Gathering and providing this Response Data Report is just another way the DMA is making an effort to advance and protect responsible data-driven marketing.

If you would like to purchase a copy of the full Response Rate Report, you can do so by going to https://thedma.org/marketing-insights/bookstore/.

This post was authored by Elizabeth A. Beasley, Account Manager, Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc.

Elizabeth Beasley serves as an account manager at Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc www.BeasleyDirect.com   Elizabeth manages new client on-boarding and accounts, social media, corporate presentations, corporate website, and database maintenance.  She also serves as an account manager for the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California www.DMAnc.org, managing event logistics, registration and promotion. She holds a B.A. in Strategic Communications from National University.

*DMA Response Rate Report 2015: Performance and Cost Metrics across Direct Media. Direct Marketing Association, 2015. Print.

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People are still people, even when they’re on the job and deciding what technical products to buy. In technical writing, when you present features, translate them into benefits that make an emotional appeal. Avoid industry buzzwords like “resonate” and “disrupt” in favor of simple language. If nothing else, this strategy will differentiate you and make your message stand out compared to marketers who only speak in jargon.

Another way to look at this is to keep it simple. Tell your complicated story in basic human terms that boil down to easily understood story lines. A copywriter might think it’s hard to know which of the technical specs is most important so they better include all of them. Or, this buyer will need a lot of information in order to justify the cost. But humans can only absorb so much information, especially when they may not have asked for that information in the first place.

Even if your prospect is the chief technology officer of a large company, they’re also a human being and will evaluate rationally, but ultimately make an emotional decision. At the end of the day they want to be praised for their good work, have a comfortable lifestyle because they’ve been promoted, and go home at a reasonable hour instead of having to solve headaches. Your job is to make the connection between your product or service and these fundamental needs.

Three Technical Writing Tip on How To Write Tech Copy that Gets Results

One of our copywriters shared his tips for writing tech copy that consistently gets outstanding response:

The first thing I believe about tech writing is that you need to understand the product—not necessarily on a programmatic level, but the problem it solves, and why it does this better than other options. I’m not a scientist but I love to learn how things work.

Secondly, I believe that technology buyers are people with the same personal motivations as those buying consumer products. They want to be secure, avoid conflict and achieve recognition, and in an indirect way, technical products help them do this.

Finally, I always ask to interview the sales team so I can understand the objections that are typically raised and the hot buttons that get prospects excited about the product. I go to CES most every year (and attended Comdex before that) and spend most of my time hanging back near kiosks to watch sales engineers do technical presentations.

I believe these steps are missing in a lot of the copy I read for technical companies that reads like a laundry list of specs. If I beat more than my share of direct marketing campaign tests, it’s not so much because I was a dramatically better writer, but because I was diligent in my preparation. As Woody Allen said, 80% of success is just showing up.

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Laurie Beasley, President, Beasley Direct Marketing

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