I remember the first time as a young marketing manager at a software company in the 1980’s we were given an email account to communicate with our co-workers. It was text only, kludgey, and the very foundation of email inbox systems we use today. The first email sending platforms in the 1990s only allowed text emails, and in those days email marketing often had 50-75% click-through rates. That seemed like the golden age of email marketing from a response and simplicity standpoint. Emails were easy to set up. Copy was clean and clear. We’ve come a long way since then by adding images, personalization, and dynamic content to emails. But, with the complexity we may have taken away from clean design and clarity of message. However, we may be coming “full circle,” returning to a simpler, cleaner and more text oriented design for email nurture. We’ll explore the reasons why in this article.

Simpler may be better…for a lot of reasons

The trend back to a more text-oriented design for emails started a couple of years ago, but I’ve noticed it gain huge momentum in the past six months. There a number of possible reasons for this. Text emails are:

• Mobile compatible (not a lot of big images taking up viewport area)
• Fast to execute
• Feel authentic (like a real person is writing/sending them)
• Easy for a busy person to get through

Huge proponents of these types of emails are Ann Handley, of Marketing Profs, Ryan Deiss of Digital Marketer, and even LinkedIn and Marketo have gotten into the swing. Check out the latest nurture email I just received from LinkedIn this week. Very simple text explaining new company page features. It has a text link with no button! They leave the images and video out of the email and put them on a very well done landing page.

Example text email nurture from LinkedIn. All text, no logo, and no buttons.

The biggest motivation might be mobile

Designing emails for mobile compatibility can be a huge struggle to get everything you want to say in the first view/scroll area. Big images, or any images for that matter, can push your main message too far down and get in the way of what you’re trying to accomplish with nurture messaging. That’s why I think many brands are moving away from images, big logos and big buttons on their nurtures and moving to a more text-oriented, clean approach to email design. That approach looks great on desktop and mobile.

Less to program means faster to execute

A text oriented email means you have less to program. You don’t have to over-engineer the email with responsive design and @media commands. It can be a single-column, albeit narrower mobile aware design done in simple HTML or a template that almost anyone in the marketing department can manage.

Text feels more authentic

There is a big push in marketing for brands to feel more authentic to their customers. There’s nothing more authentic than a personal note or letter. Many marketers are having their email nurtures signed by assigned account reps and if their name is going on it, it better feel like it’s coming from them with a more personal note rather than a splashy promotional email.

Text emails are easy for the reader to get through

The competition for eyes and readership in the inbox is huge. You’re better off if you’re known as the brand that “gets to the point fast.” Or at least fast and in an interesting way. Ann Handley of Marketing Profs writes very entertaining emails, but more than that she gets her point across fast without a lot of visual hoopla. So if you’re cruising through your inbox and want to see the latest course details or find out what’s on Ann’s ever curious mind, boom you can usually get through her emails in 5 to 10 seconds.

MarketingProfs emails are clean, simple and easy to get through.

Even the big boys, like Marketo, are thinking that simple text is better. Check out this email nurture example. It’s an invite to a webinar on artificial intelligence and personalization. They chose good old, simple text to get this invite out the door. Not much foo-foo in this email. And honestly, I didn’t need more than what they put in that one sentence to know whether I wanted to attend the webinar. We were both served well by the simplicity and brevity.

Marketo chose a very simple text email note to promote an upcoming webinar.

Less is more…response

The return to text email style is supported by the fact that even outside of marketing, workers are struggling to simplify communications with popular productivity tools like Slack that are simple text-oriented communications. Going back to our email roots may also revive our response rates. If our email readers know that they can get the stuff they need quickly and easily from our emails, then they may be more likely to open them. This is being tested by many, and I believe will bear out meaningful results in increasing open and click-through rates. And in the words of the poet Robert Browning, “less is more.”

Is your email marketing nurture campaign failing? Our email marketing team can help. Contact us now.

By Laurie Beasley, Co-Founder and President, Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc.

The post How Using Good Old Fashioned Plain Text Emails May Become the “New” Email Nurture Tactic appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

We are proud to announce that Laurie Beasley, President of Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., has been named one of 2019’s top 20 Women Leaders in Business, 20 Women to Watch, by the Sales Lead Management Association. This is the ninth year of this judged event which recognizes extraordinary contributions to winners’ communities and companies (SLMA). Laurie has previously been counted among the 40 Most Inspiring Leaders in Sales Lead Management by the SLMA in 2013, 2014 and 2017.

James Obermayer, SLMA CEO, said “This is the ninth year of this leadership recognition program and the twenty women selected by the judges have many things in common. They have strong business accomplishments, service on business and non-profit boards, advanced degrees, and a record of giving back to their communities and industries. Many are speakers, writers, and authors. They have founded companies, and they work in manufacturing, agencies, software and services, and fulfilled roles as C-level executives, customer service, sales and marketing departments.”

“SLMA members nominated women leaders in business; from those nominated, 20 were selected. Nominees were judged on their contributions to a combination of C-level management skills, published works, and marketing and sales activities. Additional qualifications, such as board positions, authorships, non-profit experience and relevant activities and presentations, were taken into consideration” (SLMA).

About Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc.

Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., is known for bringing the latest marketing strategies to online and direct marketing. Beasley provides services in inbound and outbound marketing including: content creation, email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), print advertising, social media advertising, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, website design, direct mail marketing, lead generation and nurture campaigns, and database management. Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., helps clients in both B2B and B2C marketing and is privately held and headquartered in the Silicon Valley suburb, Morgan Hill, California.

About the Sales Lead Management Association

At the Sales Lead Management Association, we believe that managing sales leads manages revenue.  Membership and subscriptions to various publications and broadcasts, as they should be, are free.  For information call Sue Campanale at 360-933-1259.  The Sales Lead Management Association is a division of the Funnel Media Group, LLC, which publishes the Funnel Radio Channel and B2B Podcast Directory.

Need help with your direct or online marketing? Review our direct and digital service offerings here.

Find case studies and white papers at https://beasleydirect.com/resources/white-papers

The post Laurie Beasley Named as 2019’s “Top 20 Women Leaders in Business, 20 Women to Watch”, by the Sales Lead Management Association appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

Encourage your product managers and sales personnel to brighten your lead-nurturing touch sequences with warm, personal notes that congratulate their LinkedIn connections on their accomplishments. Think what it means to your prospects, clients and colleagues when you reach out to acknowledge news stories. Warming up your engagement may help to shorten a sales cycle, open up a new world of possibilities and make someone’s day. Your product marketing and sales personnel can get notifications as soon as the news hit publications and be among the first to send a note. Here’s how:

LinkedIn provides a free service, Connections in the News, which collates and sends you links to articles about your connections. With a quick click, you can instantly react with an appropriate remark, either through the LinkedIn platform or not. It’s like Google Alerts for your LinkedIn network.

Jumpstart your company’s lead-nurturing messages

We all get tired of the constant parade of hard-sell emails. Find inspiration in the following five points to jumpstart your company’s personalized, lead-nurturing messages. Seize each opportunity to open a door a little wider. Refer to the new story that initiated the communication and then take it further with a call to action.

1. Send a simple, warm note and ask to catch up
2. Spot possible new needs and suggest a time to explore solutions
3. Identify a company’s readiness for a new purchase based on their new direction
4. Discover new opportunities when contacts move to a new company or become decision-makers
5. Recognize success and reconnect, perhaps kickstarting a partnership, a joint event or something else surprisingly neat and new

Find out about mergers, new acquisitions and initiatives, and new responsibilities that create new chances to open or rekindle discussions. Take the process further to cheer colleagues, recruit new team members or ask for introductions that could lead to meaningful relationships.

Example and how to sign up

The example below of a Connections in the News email I received the day after a press release published a story about a former coworker, Kim Carpenter, gave me the opportunity to send a note right away and praise her hard work. Note the Message Kim link that I could use to dash off a quick reaction right there and then.

Encourage your marketing and sales management staff to start adding more soft-sell, lead-nurturing messages as things happen. Follow these instructions to sign up for your LinkedIn Connections in the News and get started now. Keeping current is free and fast.

Want to learn more about lead nurturing? Schedule a call with our team to learn how we tackle multi-touch, multichannel programs–what we call “Meeting Maker” Campaigns. We’re glad to help you determine how many qualified leads you need to meet revenue with our free Reverse Sales and Lead Funnel calculation.

More resources

For more resources, peruse our Meeting Maker campaign case studies. Download our Why It Takes 7-13+ Touches to Deliver a Qualified B2B Sales Lead Today white paper.  Whatever you do, consistently keep the touches coming and certainly don’t give up after the first handful. You’ll be glad you did.

By Jan Carroza, VP of Business Development and Account Management, Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc.

The post 5 Ways LinkedIn “Connections in the News” Prompts Fresh, Welcome Lead-Nurturing appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

Customer lifecycle diagramming can help you narrow your sales conversion gap and extract more sales per customer visit, more referrals and more total sales. Examination of a buyer’s experience may turn up weaknesses that can be fixed with just a few tweaks, yielding exciting results. Just a little time and effort spent in diagramming can make a significant impact on lead nurturing, customer acquisition, retention strategies and in enhancing touch point sequences that delight customers, leading to greater revenue.

Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, describes the compelling reason visitors pay repeated, sustained attention to a concept, brand or its products as The Stickiness Factor. When companies strive to provide a great customer experience and thought leadership, the effect is a boost in customer satisfaction, sales and internal morale. In other words, customers will “stick” with your brand.

Substantial, Sustainable Benefits

The benefits of a customer lifecycle deep-dive will strengthen your lead generation and nurturing campaign strategy and help you explore new sales opportunities. You will be able to:

1. Extend and increase the average customer lifetime value (ALV)
2. Increase average order value (AOV)
3. Increase referrals to new customers
4. Streamline internal and external systems, which may in turn
5. Decrease costs

Pretty powerful, huh? Let’s dig into how to go about this creative process.

The Customer Lifecycle Diagramming Process

Start by tracing the buyer experience through every interaction, looking for points where the relationship stalls. Generate an action plan with solutions to increase recurring sales, gain new customers and wring every dollar from your current database. Then expand the plan to touch every prospect with a series of 7-13+ actions. According to a Microsoft study, 89% of sales people give up after a fourth contact, while after a 9^th touch, firms had a 90% chance of being ready to receive a proposal. That’s why part two of this project is to develop a series of touch points.

Note how in the customer lifecycle diagram below, the process illustrates:

1. Activities that happen post-sale to put the consumer into a new sales cycle,
2. Web visitors who subscribe, then unsubscribe and how they re-enter another cycle until they express their delight publicly as an evangelist of the brand.

Diagram the lead nurturing process of your customer lifecycle to diagnose marketing needs and sales opportunities with a touch point sequence.

List Customer Touch Points

Use a similar structure to map the lifecycle of your customers interactions. Start with your list of customer touches to identify missed customer needs, such as:

1. Customer acquisition and nurturing activities to gain a registration or purchase
2. Solicitation of upsells and future purchases
3. Web visitor searches, ease of navigation, queries and replies
4. Resolved customer retention, phone messaging and other service issues
5. Responses to reviews
6. Requests for testimonials

Evaluate how your customers do their research, then examine the entire purchase and customer service process, the follow-up steps and retention system. Scrutinize cases, surveys and methods from stem to stern: sales, marketing, customer care, IT, fulfillment and administration team activities.

Look at how you initially capture a first connection. It’s important to capture an email address as soon as possible to begin and continue customer interaction. Review and reconsider incentive offers for email opt-ins. Then review how retention problems and lost clients are handled, as well as the renewal cycles to attract the prospect again, regain trust and eventually acquire a new brand champion.

Initially, your customer lifecycle diagram may look like a tree with lots of branches. Your goal is to create and close loops that solve problems, reward the customer, present new delightful experiences and continue a mutually rewarding relationship. Along the way, you’ll identify various additional offers and marketing assets you will need to facilitate operations. You may also revise your FAQs or add a Live Chat feature.

Enhance Your Program Creatively with Touch Point Options

Continually add new content to stimulate customer interest. Here are some examples of customer touch points to generate and plug into the process and department procedures:

1. How-to videos
2. Sale sheets
3. Catalogs to pack with products being shipped
4. Coupons and discount promo codes
5. Customer service telemarketing scripts
6. Checklists
7. Premiums or dimensional direct mail pieces and oh, so much more.

As you evaluate the customer lifecycle, you may discover opportunities for product development to increase the available upsell options, for instance. You may revise procedures and retrain team members or change the website to increase speed and improve search results and navigation. Marketing, PR and customer service staff may monitor community and social media activities more closely. Marketing may provide accounting, customer service and sales with additional materials (bill stuffers, thank-you cards, email templates and post-call surveys) as well as revise or expand messaging, ads, newsletters, emailings and landing pages.

Example of Customer Touchpoint Sequence

In B2B sales, it easily takes 7-13+ touches to close a deal over $100.  Let’s walk through a possible customer scenario that might give you some ideas:

1. A business starts by using a free white paper to secure an email address.
2. The Thank You page where the white paper is downloaded offers a 25% discount on a first purchase reminder from the site with a link back to a landing page related to the white paper topic.
3. The customer makes a purchase and sees other products bought by other customers who bought this same product.
4. The Thank You confirmation page provides an opportunity to share with friends.
5. A follow-up email asks about satisfaction and provides a link to provide a review.
6. If a customer languishes without activity for a given period, customer service may reach out by phone, email or direct mail with another incentive, such as a discount for permission to autoship product.
7. The freebie, discount or incentive that leads to a renewal triggers follow-up thanks, sharing, reviewing and enticements.
8. A request for a testimonial or referral may offer a free month of product or service.

With the hard work done, the team can enjoy better results as they modify and maintain the program to make it constantly relevant and engaging. Both the company and the consumer will enjoy the results of improved lead acquisition, nurturing and retention strategies.

If you need guidance to map your customer lifecycle process, we can help. Get started with a free marketing reverse sales lead funnel audit. Contact us for a free consultation!

Recommendations

Want to read more?

Get inspired by our successful strategies, tactics and results of Meeting Making Campaigns in Case Studies. Beasley Direct provides insightful guidance into the lead nurturing process in our free white paper: “Why It Takes 7-13 Touches to Generate a Qualified B2B Sales Lead Today.”

By Laurie Beasley, Co-Founder and President, Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc.

The post Diagramming Your Customer Lifecycle to Turbo-charge Sales appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

The ABC Glove Corporation (not the real name) is a leader in the field of industrial gloves. The average value of a new customer account to ABC is high -— around $50,000 per customer per year. The target contact is a decision maker in safety, operations or purchasing within metal manufacturing industries.
ABC’s ambitious goal was to gain $2.5 million in incremental sales. The corporation’s marketing department tried everything: pay-per-click advertising, email, tradeshows and more -—-but could not acquire enough qualified sales leads to hit this target. ABC called us in to help them take a fresh and more productive approach that would result in more appointments for the sales department.

First, we identified the sales-ready “A” lead criteria based on their selling process and marketplace. Then we did some simple, back-of-the-napkin analysis of the needs of the lead-to-sales funnel. Based on the estimations of the vice president of marketing, we found that achieving an incremental $2.5 million in annual sales at $50,000 per sale meant they would have to close 50 new sales in a year. At a 20% proposal close rate, they needed 250 qualified sales opportunities in the proposal stage. At a 25% conversion rate (qualified sales-ready A leads to proposal rate), ABC needed 1,000 “Qualified A” leads in the sales team pipeline. And the conversion rate of marketing inquiry level (MQL) leads to sales-ready A leads is 10%. The bottom line: ABC Corporation needed 10,000 MQLs in the top of the demand generation funnel process to be able to hit their incremental sales target.

Why Wouldn’t Email Alone Work?

The VP of marketing estimated that on the high end, the available universe of contacts in companies in metal manufacturing was roughly 7,500. If ABC emailed all 7,500 and got a 1% inbound response, that would equal 75. If 50% of those leads filled out a form, that would result in 35 marketing-level MQL leads. ABC would have to email to this list at least 285 times to get the 10,000 marketing-level leads in the pipeline. (But it is unlikely that every email would result in a 1% inbound response as the response rates from this small audience would decline over time.) So email alone could not achieve the sales goals.

Multi-Touch and Multi-Channel Solution

Under the conditions of this small but highly valuable target market, we determined that ABC needed a much higher lead-to-sale conversion process to meet their sales goals. We recommended a multi-touch and multi-channel sequence of email and tele-prospecting. This would result in actual appointments being made for the sales department.

We normally recommend testing different approaches with a small sample of prospects to see which approach stimulates the highest response level. In this case, we tested two offers. A book about physical safety in the metal manufacturing environment versus the offer of a free pair of gloves. The VP of marketing suggested the offer of a free pair of gloves because in his experience, the prospect would request a sample pair in any case, so he felt this would short-circuit the process to some degree. We were less certain, as we have found in the past that a free sample sometimes feels like too much of a commitment early in the relationship. We also tested two lists, an in-house list versus a rental list.

The test showed that the appeal of the offer was about equal between the gloves and the book. (We went with the gloves for the roll out campaign). Both lists performed equally well.

The Multi-Touch Lead Nurturing Process Involved:

Initial email campaign.

• Initial call (left voice message or in some accounts we must be directed to proper contact).
• Call to engage new contact in the value prop and offers.
• Email to the correct contact, and or email content as requested to support our dialog.
• Call to complete the value prop and offer conversation, listen to needs and pain points and gather those critical data points into the lead qualification script-record, and if qualified, close on ABC sales rep appointment.

Marketing collateral for Glove Company campaign.

We often find it takes seven to thirteen touches to deliver a sales-ready lead. In this case, the average number of touches was 4.28. Why did our campaign for ABC require so few touches? The answer is embedded in our multi-touch best practices:

Have a good list (few incorrect contacts).

• Develop creative that captures hearts and minds and have follow up content and dialog to support it.
• Offer something of high perceived value.
• Optimize the value proposition delivery by adding tele-prospecting to the mix. This creates a personal relationship with the prospect. Remember: people buy from people, and prospects don’t share their qualifying pain points on lead forms.

We were able to generate enough qualified sales appointments to help them meet their additional $2.5 million sales goal, and we taught them how to sustain this level of growth year over year.

Laurie B. Beasley

Laurie B. Beasley is co-founder and president of Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc. Beasley Direct is a Silicon Valley direct marketing agency that has managed search, email, online, and demand generation campaigns for nearly 100 companies. Ms. Beasley serves as President of the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California. Laurie manages the eMarketing Roundtable for the BMA Northern California. She is also an instructor of online marketing at UC Berkeley Extension and teaches for the Online Marketing Institute. Ms. Beasley frequently speaks on online marketing and demand generation topics for marketing organizations, including the DMA, BMA, AMA, Tech Council, and the Online Marketing Summit.

Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc. is known for bringing the latest marketing strategies to online and direct marketing. The company provides services in email marketing, search engine optimization, social media, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, website design, media planning, direct mail marketing, lead generation and nurture campaigns, and database management. Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc. helps clients in both B2B and B2C marketing. Beasley Direct and Online Marketing is privately held and headquartered in the Silicon Valley suburb, Morgan Hill, California. For more information, go to www.BeasleyDirect.com or call Laurie Beasley, President, at 408-782-0046 x21 or email lbeasley@beasleydirect.com.

The post How We Helped an Industrial Glove Manufacturer to Schedule New Sales Appointments that Resulted in $2.5 Million in Incremental Sales appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.