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.

This is a successful meeting maker campaign that includes an appeal to emotions, multiple touches, and a carefully designed offer. The call to action was to set up an appointment for Sales. We were marketing to engineers — always a tough sell because of their skepticism. We sought to persuade them to consider replacing a tried-and-true instrument with something they may not even have heard of. Our team did this not by leading with product features. Instead, we pulled on their heartstrings — reliving a recent event in which engineers were heroes because of the quality of their instruments and their work.

Background:

Anritsu’s VectorStar Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) is used to measure microwave and mm-wave frequencies in design, testing and manufacture of electronic components where extreme accuracy is required. A new model leapfrogged the competition in features and performance, providing the opportunity to generate sales leads through a multi-channel marketing campaign.

Electrical engineers (EE) are the primary audience for this campaign. They think in a methodical way and demand proof of product claims. Engineers require detailed specs and technical information to make a buying decision. They are not at all impressed by marketing copy and claims unsubstantiated by statistics.

The Challenge: Marketing to Engineers

Anritsu’s predecessor company, Wiltron, invented the modern VNA tester in the late 1950s. While Anritsu continued to improve VNA high-performance technology, several well-funded companies have entered the market and developed similar versions of Anritsu’s products, taking the lead in sheer sales order volume. We needed to get Anritsu back on our buyer’s “short list”.

Electrical engineers are process-oriented. Consequently, if they are comfortable with a tool and that tool satisfies their requirements, it’s difficult to get them to switch. VNA testers start at $100K and have a long sales cycle because they are considered a capital equipment investment.

Campaign Objective:

Our goal with the campaign was to bring Anritsu to the table with new customers that the sales force had not yet penetrated, creating awareness of the Anritsu VectorStar solution and ultimately generating face-to-face consultation meetings with qualified firms. A consultation requester who met key budget, purchase authority, need and timeframe-to-purchase criteria was considered an “A” category sales lead. In addition, the “B”-rated leads are prospect contacts with proven interest that opted in to future communications, but were not yet qualified.

Creative and Marketing Strategy:

The creative focused on the Mars Curiosity Rover, which had made a spectacularly successful landing on Mars about the time this project began. Engineers are inherently interested in the accomplishments of other engineers and how they solved tough problems. The Mars Curiosity Rover landing was one of the toughest, with thousands of measurements and calculations that had to be coded into the landing and could not be altered during the “seven minutes of terror” during which the Curiosity Rover descended to the planet’s surface. To quote from our letter to prospects:

Marketing creative focused on the Mars Curiosity Rover.

As it descended through the atmosphere of Mars, the spacecraft carrying the Curiosity Rover fired its rockets 79 times, went through five configuration changes, and slowed from 13,000 mph to a standstill. In the final operation, a “sky crane” was used to gently deposit the Curiosity on the surface since retro rockets would stir up too much dust.

We pointed out the extreme precision this required, and then made the transition to the reader: we think of the NASA and JPL engineers as heroes, but you are required to make equally exacting measurements every day. That’s why you deserve an instrument like the VectorStar.

The Campaign’s Focus

The centerpiece of the campaign was a direct mailing in a transparent tube containing a poster. An artist’s rendering as a constant reminder of the Curiosity Rover’s descent sequence was on one side (NASA has done renderings but the client did not want to violate any potential copyrights so we commissioned our own) with Anritsu product specs at the bottom. Our hopes were that engineers would mount these in their cubicles, thus providing a constant reminder of the VectorStar, complete with a call-to-action. In addition, we followed this up with an email on the same theme, and then began the telemarketing campaign.

Personalized direct mail envelope with Mars Curiosity Rover.

Twenty-four to forty-eight hours after the email delivery, the calling team began to engage email and direct mail recipients. As a result, this multi-touch process had the effect of increasing the number of contact presentations and shortening the lead generation cycle. And, most contacts recalled receiving the direct mail piece or email. Many were familiar with the offering and willing to engage. Program metrics are indicative of the effectiveness of this process with the high volume of completed call scripts as partial evidence.

Call-to-Action

The call-to-action was a free gift when a prospect completed a VectorStar sales presentation. We tested two offers: an Anritsu-branded backpack (appealing because our target likes to carry lots of gadgets around) versus a VNA technical manual valued at $50. Because of concerns about accepting gifts, government and government contractors were offered only the book.

Additionally, all prospects that registered their contact information were immediately provided a free download link for a relevant white paper.

Because the price of the VectorStar VNA is $51,000 and up, we knew that repeated contacts—and often multiple contacts—within the same company would be necessary to close the sale. The goal of the multi-touch approach was to start the process by gathering as much information as possible. At the same time we gained initial commitment to enter the lead pipeline.

Results:

Overall, the campaign was highly successful. Based on the sales CRM reports, the program generated over $2.8 million dollars in the sales pipeline during the three-month campaign window. Furthermore, many high sales potential leads are still being nurtured.

The campaign had a specific goal of developing 69 “A” leads that were considered opportunities in the CRM system. Through direct response and follow-up calling we developed 115 leads, which put us at 167% of the goal. In addition, the Calling Team gathered 426 opt-in contacts for continued nurturing and development.

Personalized email for Anritsu VectorStar with Mars Curiosity Rover.

In conclusion, the VectorStar campaign shows best practices for an effective multi-part B-to-B nurturing campaign: start with a memorable contact sequence, then follow up with multiple touches that develop the prospect into a sales-ready lead. Because so many recipients remembered and engaged with the mailing and follow-up email, it was easier to get them on the phone and easier to complete an initial sales conversation. Because of this effective warm up approach, calls were completed faster, allowing more contacts to be made within the allotted time and budget. The result: more leads and sales opportunities.

Marketing collateral for Anritsu VectorStar campaign.

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 Anritsu Exceed Lead Goals 167% With a Meeting Maker Campaign appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

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.

* * * *

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.

The post Beasley Direct & Online Marketing Agency Celebrates Twenty-Five Years of Great Service appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

By John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, Beasley Direct Marketing

Starting April 12 of this year, Google will be making some significant changes to the algorithm that controls mobile perspective. The current algorithm labels mobile sites as “mobile-friendly” or “not mobile-friendly.” After April 12, Google will deliver all rankings, regardless of the device you are currently using, with mobile factors built in. While your mobile site may rank higher on mobile phone versus desktop search, the mobile factors will still impact ALL of your rankings, regardless of device. This weighting of ranking on all devices based on mobile optimization factors is a major departure in the algorithm.

The reason for this is the continued strong growth in people accessing the Internet via mobile devices. According to Morgan Stanley Research, 2014 was the year that mobile access overtook and surpassed desktop access. People are now using combinations of desktop and mobile in unprecedented ways; a user might search for something on Google Maps, then get in the car and access it with an iPhone on the road. People move back and forth almost seamlessly between desktop, tablet, smartphone and other devices. This multi-screen world affects how people search.

Often, people are doing parallel searches simultaneously on multiple devices. Someone might be watching the Oscars on the desktop computer while looking up information on different actors and directors on the smartphone. And while multi-screen use is growing fast in the United States, it is already more prevalent in Europe and the Far East.

Google is also modifying how it searches, indexes and ranks sites. Mobile apps have become so important in interacting with the Internet that Google will now incorporate its content into search results. Google will treat apps like web pages and will include your results with other search results in general. For example, you might have a recipe app on your smartphone that has many different recipes in it. Google can crawl that recipe database on your app and return the results to you. (This will initially be limited to Android, not the iPhone.)

What Does This Mean to SEO Professionals?

First and foremost, it means you need good mobile optimization best practices along with more traditional desktop development as you build your website. Set your site up with responsive design where content and layout adjust dynamically to whatever device accesses the site. Have a defined viewing area, known as a viewport, which automatically changes the layout and order of things depending on device.

This is especially important if you have a large chunk of content. You have to assure that scrolling works properly so people don’t have to scroll from side to side, which is annoying and may prompt a person to give up on your site.

Your overall visual design for mobile must take advantage of the smaller screens. Make sure your touchscreen visuals are large enough to touch with a finger on a phone screen. There’s nothing more frustrating than teensy little buttons, because they are hard to click on accurately—impossible if you have larger fingers. Minimize the amount of typing you require on mobile screens, using drop-down menus as much as possible.

Keep the mobile user in mind at all times when designing web sites. More than half the people online are accessing the Internet through a mobile device, partly through mobile websites, partly through apps. In December 2014, one-quarter of all Internet traffic was driven by Facebook. Of that, the majority was driven via mobile interface. The importance of mobile access has done nothing but mushroom over the past few years, and there appears to be no end in sight. Having pages that are well designed for mobile and touch-screen is an essential component of successful search engine marketing.

For more information on mobile and local search engine marketing, read our white paper Optimizing Local Search Marketing: A Hands-on Guide.

* * * *

This post was authored by John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, of Beasley Direct Marketing. Contact John at jthyfault@beasleydirect.com.

John has more than 18 years of marketing, sales and product development experience, and he brings a proven track record of successful campaign, program and product development expertise. His knowledge of search engine optimization and marketing, combined with an in-depth understanding of customer identification, market analysis and segmentation, allows him to deliver high returns on our client’s marketing investment for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business markets.

Prior to working with Beasley Direct, John was Senior Client Services Project Director at ThirdAge.com, a first wave baby boomer lifestyle and community website. At ThirdAge he successfully led major client sponsorships for Fortune 100 companies in healthcare (Tylenol), financial services (American Century), technology (Intel & IBM) and consumer products areas (Revlon & Viactive). He was responsible for strategic and tactical goal setting, project management, new product creation and web site production. John previously worked in Channel Marketing and National Account Sales for IDG Books Worldwide, the publishers of the immensely popular “…For Dummies” book series. Additionally, he managed the wholesale distributor sales channel for Tor/Forge Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

John is active in local marketing associations, including the Direct Marketing Association, the Business Marketing Association and is currently serving on the board of directors for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association.

John has taught search engine marketing fundamentals extensively. He has led workshops for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association, Northern California Direct Marketing Association (DMAnc.org) and the Business Marketing Association. He also teaches Search Engine Marketing at UCSC Extension (Silicon Valley).

The post Get Your Mobile Site Ready: Google Making Changes to Mobile Algorithm appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

By Laurie B. Beasley, President, Beasley Direct Marketing

We’ve been sourcing B2B (business-to-business) prospect lists for our clients for more than 25 years. A lot of players have come and gone in that time. Dunn and Bradstreet (D&B) is the oldest list owner, and start-ups like Netprospex and Discover.org have come along. Some prospect list companies license their data for continuous updates in your CRM system, and some lists, like OmnichannelBase and Saphhire, offer lists for single or multiple campaign use. The question we are asked most often is “How do you tell which is a good list and which is a bad one?” We’ll try to answer that.

How to Tell Good B2B Prospect Data vs. Bad

Five criteria determine list quality and appropriateness for your purpose:

1. Amount and completeness of data available
2. The data source
3. How the data is validated
4. What selections are available
5. Are lists single or multiple-use?

In the chart below we show several B2B list providers and some of their features.

Figure 1: B2B Prospect List Provider Features

*Data source strategy definitions:

Heterogenous: Multiple types of data sources

Aggregated: Data collected and re-sold

Homogenous: One source of data, such as phone surveys

Evaluating a Prospect List by the Amount and Completeness of Data

The first criteria to evaluate a B2B list by is the amount of data they have available for your target market. As you can see from the chart above, the total amount of data available from various list providers varies greatly. For example, you have ReachBase, which boasts a stunning 73 million records, and we have Discover.org, which offers 360,000 records (they specialize in IT, Marketing and Finance job functions). The first thing you should do in your list search is give the list vendor a list of key selections for your target market. This should include: job function, industry, company size, and geography (if appropriate). You should also ask how complete the contact records are. For instance, ask how many of the contact records have matching email addresses and phone numbers.

Ask the List Owner How They Collected the List

The second criteria you should evaluate is the data source. In other words, how was the data collected? Some list owners are homogenous in their approach. They compile their data from one source, such as making phone calls to companies. Other list vendors aggregate their contacts from multiple sources, such as publications and websites. Other list vendors are heterogeneous; they do both phone validation and aggregation. The more sources for a list, the more complete and valid it is likely to be.

Check on How Frequently the List Is Updated

The third criteria you should use to evaluate a list is how often the data is validated or updated. How do they know their contacts are good? The more (and most recent) validation points, the better. Some lists don’t validate. Others use phone only. Others, like Netprospex, use phone, email, and social media to validate contacts. In our experience, the more validation points, the better the list will be. You should also ask how frequently they validate. Some list owners do so once per year. Others validate every 30 to 90 days. The more recent, the better quality the list will be.

Make Sure the List Has Your Targets

The fifth criteria for evaluating a list is whether they have your target market available in their database. If you’re marketing financial or IT products, you want to make sure they have contacts that are decision makers for those products. List owners profile product “interest” two ways: The first way is by profiling a target account by the technology they use. Some lists can tell you what financial or IT products are installed at a corporation. The other way is to profile by their product interest or purchase authority. This is typically done when a target fills out a qualification form to receive a free industry publication, or publishers will compile data on which white papers or webinars a target requests.

Find out Whether the List Owner Is Making Contacts Available for Single or Multi-Use

Lastly, find out if the contacts you purchase are for single or multi-use. This will affect your pricing, and your ability to email that contact only once or multiple times. Some list owners will only make the contact postal/phone numbers available to you, and for CAN SPAM compliance purposes, will send an email out on your behalf. This is most helpful in countries with email spam laws, such as the U.S., Canada and Germany. Some list vendors offer a service to continually update and clean records in your CRM. This is especially helpful, since Discover.org reports the following statistics about company data*:

• 40% of email users change their email address at least once every two years
• 20% of postal addresses change every year
• 18% of phone numbers change every year
• 60% of people change job functions within their organization every year

With that kind of movement, we highly recommend you clean your in-house data at least quarterly or best case continuously, using a list owner that offers that data cleansing service.

Seek Lists That Offer the Most Completeness and Validation…and Then Test Them!

Our experience in sourcing lists has told us that seeking the most complete, most updated, and most segmented lists will perform the best. Your best bet is to compare list options and pricing. Don’t be afraid to ask hard questions of the list owner. Some list vendors are proud of how they maintain their records and some try to hide that information. Then test. Order 10,000 records from your two or three finalists and do a test campaign. The ultimate proof of the quality of a prospect list will be in how many leads or orders you get through using it.

If you want help comparing or ordering B2B lists, feel free to contact Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. at www.BeasleyDirect.com

*Discover.org, “The High Cost of Bad Data,” 2014.

* * * *

This blog was authored by Laurie B. Beasley, co-founder and president of Beasley Direct 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 www.DMAnc.org. She manages the eMarketing Roundtable for the BMA Northern Californiawww.NorCalBMA.org. She is also an instructor of online marketing at UC Berkeley Extension and teaches for the Online Marketing Institute www.onlinemarketinginstitute.org. 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.

The post How to Select the Right B2B Prospect List appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

Direct Mail Marketers: is Direct Mail Is Dead? NOT on Your Life.

Do you think direct mail is outdated and ineffective? Nothing could be further from the truth—in fact, direct mail continues to enjoy a higher conversion rate than any other medium. At Beasley Direct Marketing, we have two decades of experience with direct mail services, and we have some tips for you on how to use direct mail as an essential component in an integrated marketing campaign.

 Number 1: Don’t be scared off by the so-called higher cost of direct mail. The cost of printing might seem too high. But the statistics say you will make that investment back with interest. The ultimate cost per order or cost per lead is what really counts, and the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) reports that acquisition costs for direct mail are in line with pay-per-click, and are considerably lower than telemarketing.

 Number 2: Leverage your electronic marketing to get more mileage with direct mail. If you already have a landing page for email campaigns or pay-per-click, why not use it for direct mail as well? If you use personalized URLs tailored to each recipient, they will help attract attention from the prospect, and they also make tracking easier.

 Number 3: Test postcards. The U.S. Postal Service reports that postcard formats are the most likely to be read. Possibly this is because they are a quick read for someone in a hurry. Of course, your offer must be gripping and quickly comprehended. Bonus point: postcards are cheaper to print and mail.

 Number 4: Make the most of high-quality prospecting lists for direct mail. Rental direct mail lists tend to be better than rental email lists in terms of quality data and selectability. There is no SPAM regulation for direct mail, so opt-in isn’t an issue. Don’t neglect your house list, which is likely to outperform any rental list by a factor of many-to-one.

 Number 5: Use first impressions to make it from the mailbox into the house. People are getting fewer direct mail pieces than in the past, thanks to email marketing, and total mail volume is down as well. This is good news for the direct mail marketer, because it means your mail piece will gain proportionately more attention (assuming it is well designed with a compelling offer). Make that first impression a memorable one.

Number 6: Use the “stage management” of direct mail to increase your impact. When an email arrives or the reader reaches a web page, the tendency is to scan quickly and move on. But direct mail offers many opportunities for involvement, including the envelope front and back and the visual and written elements inside.

Number 7: Get personal. Don’t just address the recipient by name. For example, Beasley Direct once marketed test measurement equipment to execs at cellular companies, using different hot buttons and issues, keyed to the cell company where the individual exec worked.

Number 8: Be timely. Traditional direct mail campaigns used to take weeks to execute, but in today’s digitally printed, just-in-time world, you can take advantage of the time factor. For instance, American Signature Furniture sends a self-mailer the same day that prospects visit a showroom but do not buy—and have reaped impressive results. Consider seasonality, and calendar your strongest seasons for your direct mail campaigns.

Number 9: Go dimensional. 3D mailings can be as simple as a lumpy envelope with a pen enclosed, or as elaborate as a specially designed and die cut box. Because 3D mailings tend to be more expensive, reserve them for high-value prospects, particularly when you need to get your message past a corporate gatekeeper. The DMA has found that dimensional outperforms standard formats by 250%.

Number 10: Test, test, test. And then analyze the results. Direct mail is highly measurable because every lead can be traced back to a source code or 800 number. Don’t get so involved in the creative and messaging that you forget to properly plan source codes. Make sure that the people responsible for collecting data are well trained and have the time to secure solid, reliable data.

This podcast was brought to you by Beasley Direct Marketing. If you enjoyed our podcast and would like more detail on these ideas, please download our free whitepaper, “10 Ways To Optimize Your Direct Mail Marketing Campaigns.” In addition to providing specific action items, we also provide some case studies to bring these ideas to life. The whitepaper can be found on the homepage at www.beasleydirect.com…that’s spelled BEASLEYDIRECT.com. Thank you!

The post Direct Mail Is Dead? Not on Your Life. appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

By John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, Beasley Direct Marketing

Client:        A law firm specializing in family practice.

Issue:        The client wanted to reduce cost per lead, which was more than $220.

Solution:    Segmented marketplace to reveal which segments were most productive; refined keywords used in online advertising; reworded ads; analyzed lead history to optimize ad placement.

Results:     Within six months, reduced cost per lead by about 50%; increased conversion rate by about 15%.

* * * *

A law firm specializing in family practice in New Jersey asked Beasley Direct Marketing to reduce its cost per lead and acquisition. The practice handled a broad range of issues, including divorce, marriage, child custody, naturalization, immigration and pre-nuptial agreements. When we started with the firm, cost per lead was more than $220. The law firm advertised both online and in print in local publications.

Our first step was to determine if the client wanted to target all types of business that it handled, or only specific segments. We discovered that, historically, the types of clients providing the most revenue at the lowest cost per acquisition were divorce, child custody arrangements and pre-nuptial agreements. Further analysis showed that the quality of pre-nuptial leads was poor (lots of people were voyeuristically searching for celebrity “pre-nups”), and this was dropped from the ad program. In the case of divorce and child custody, we were able to identify clients, segment by male versus female, and target those who were in the process or just thinking about it.

The overall quality of the leads coming in from the firm’s advertising program was poor. Quality scores tend to vary by market; similar click-through rates in two different markets may yield very different levels of quality. We did geographical targeting, aiming at commuters in the bridges and tunnels in the tri-state area, and we also developed localized ads to support the firm’s different offices, getting the ads in front of people who worked or lived in proximity to those offices. So instead of bidding on “New Jersey family law firm,” we bid on specific towns and regions. This was especially effective on the New Jersey turnpike corridor, where towns tend to run into one another. (Geographical targeting alone yielded a 10% decrease in cost per lead.)

We analyzed the language of the online ads and refined them with cleaner, less cluttered language (keeping in mind at all times the restrictions on lawyer advertising by the New Jersey Bar Association). We also looked at the list of keywords to identify those that had historically converted well, winnowing out the less-productive ones. We continue to do this on an ongoing basis.

We also looked at timing considerations. When we first started with the firm, it was running all the ads at the same price 24 hours a day and seven days a week, all year long. Examining their Google Analytics data, we were able to identify where they derived their most leads by time of day, week and year. For example, Sunday evenings from 10 pm to 1 am were highly productive times; apparently, the end of the weekend is a time when many people begin considering divorce. Another spike occurred just after lunch during weekdays. We also noticed that suppertime on any day and mid-morning and mid-afternoon during weekdays were not productive. This allowed us to pare about 30% off the cost of acquisition, simply by running ads only during the times of greatest productivity. The remaining cost reductions came about through keyword expansion and refinement and constant ad testing, which allowed us to drop losing ads and retain or develop ads that were proven winners.

The client wanted to try remarketing—the practice of identifying a searcher’s interests and targeting ads that follow that individual around the web. We were not in favor of this because the client sells services with many privacy concerns. For example, if a man has been searching for divorce lawyers and his wife uses the same computer, she may be able to discern from the ads she sees that her husband is contemplating divorce—information that, if true, should come from her husband, not the Internet. But we did a limited test, and actually saw a decrease in click-throughs and conversions, so the downside was greater than even we had anticipated.

In addition to abiding by the advertising regulations of the New Jersey Bar Association, the client also wanted to stay within the bounds of good taste and a genuine concern for clients’ privacy and wellbeing. This concern extended to which keywords we selected, as well as the wording of ads. Despite these restrictions, we were able to slash cost per lead by about 50%, while increasing ad productivity by about 15%.

Of course, this kind of process is never “done.” We continue to keep track of keyword productivity, ad scheduling and other data to assure the client’s promotional program is cost-effective and productive.

* * * *

This post was authored by John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, of Beasley Direct Marketing. Contact John at jthyfault@beasleydirect.com.

John has more than 18 years of marketing, sales and product development experience, and he brings a proven track record of successful campaign, program and product development expertise. His knowledge of search engine optimization and marketing, combined with an in-depth understanding of customer identification, market analysis and segmentation, allows him to deliver high returns on our client’s marketing investment for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business markets.

Prior to working with Beasley Direct, John was Senior Client Services Project Director at ThirdAge.com, a first wave baby boomer lifestyle and community website. At ThirdAge he successfully led major client sponsorships for Fortune 100 companies in healthcare (Tylenol), financial services (American Century), technology (Intel & IBM) and consumer products areas (Revlon & Viactive). He was responsible for strategic and tactical goal setting, project management, new product creation and web site production. John previously worked in Channel Marketing and National Account Sales for IDG Books Worldwide, the publishers of the immensely popular “…For Dummies” book series. Additionally, he managed the wholesale distributor sales channel for Tor/Forge Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

 John is active in local marketing associations, including the Direct Marketing Association, the Business Marketing Association and is currently serving on the board of directors for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association.

John has taught search engine marketing fundamentals extensively. He has led workshops for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association, Northern California Direct Marketing Association (DMAnc) and the Business Marketing Association. He also teaches Search Engine Marketing at UCSC Extension (Silicon Valley).

The post Case Study: Lowering Cost Per Lead/Acquisition with Data Analysis appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

News Facts:

John Thyfault, Vice President of Search and Social Marketing for Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. will be a featured speaker at the Silicon Valley Association of Health Underwriters Sales Expo in Sunnyvale, CA on January 29, 2015. The session will cover how health insurance professionals can build their customer base by using social media and local search engine marketing with insurance marketing. To find out more about the event, go here.

About us:
Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. (www.BeasleyDirect.com) is known for bringing the latest marketing strategies to online and direct marketing. Beasley Direct provides services in email marketing, search engine optimization, print advertising, social media, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, website design, media planning, direct mail marketing, lead generation and nurture campaigns, and database management. Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. helps clients in both B2B and B2C marketing and 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 DMA2014 Annual Conference & Exhibition: The Global Event for Data-Driven Marketers is the world’s largest gathering of data-driven marketing professionals.  At DMA2014, which will be held October 25-30 in San Diego, the focus will be on igniting customer engagement.  We’ll help you discover innovative ways to engage 1:1 with customers via relevant, responsible, and real-time messaging — and drive response. We do this through leading-edge case studies from global brands; more than 70 conference sessions designed for team development; premier networking events; the 2014 Exhibit Hall featuring hundreds of the world’s top companies; and much more.  With strategic partnerships with top marketing organizations, DMA2014 delivers the most cutting-edge content to all areas of focus and interest.  For additional information, or to register for the six-day data-driven marketing event of the year, please visit https://thedma.org/ .For information about DMA2014 exhibition and sponsorship opportunities, please contact Wilson Vargas at 212.790.1468 or wvaras@the-dma.org.

About the Silicon Valley Association of Health Underwriters (https://svahu.org/home)
The Silicon Valley Association of Health Underwriters, California’s Benefit Specialists, is an organization of insurance professionals committed to promoting the ethical interest of our industry.  We do this by providing continuing education for our members and their clients and act as consumer advocates with legislative leaders at both the Federal and State Level.
Contact:
Laurie B. Beasley
 Ph: 408-782-0046 x21
 Fx: 408-782-9604 Email: 
lbeasley@beasleydirect.com

The post Insurance Marketing: John Thyfault to Speak on Social Media and New Marketing Technology at Silicon Valley Assn. of Health Underwriters Sales Expo appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

Poster of the Mars Curiosity Rover created by Beasley Direct Marketing for Anritsu’s VectorStar Campaign

by Laurie B. Beasley, president, Beasley Direct Marketing

Here is a successful multi-channel B2B direct marketing campaign case study that followed many of the guidelines we’ve been talking about, including an appeal to emotions, multiple touches, and a carefully designed offer. The audience was engineers—always a tough sell because of their skepticism—and we sought to persuade them to consider replacing a tried-and-true instrument with something they may not even have heard of. We did this not by leading with product features but with a pull on the heartstrings—reliving a recent event in which engineers were heroes because of the quality of their instruments and their work.

Background

Anritsu’s VectorStar Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) is used to measure microwave and mm-wave frequencies in design, testing and manufacture of electronic components where extreme accuracy is required. A new model leapfrogged the competition in features and performance, providing the opportunity to generate sales leads through a multi-channel marketing campaign. The primary audience for this campaign is electrical engineers (EEs). They think in a methodical way and demand proof of product claims. They require detailed specs and technical information to make a buying decision. They are not at all impressed by marketing copy and claims unsubstantiated by statistics.

The Challenge:

Anritsu’s predecessor company, Wiltron, invented the modern VNA tester in the late 1950s. While Anritsu continued to improve VNA high-performance technology, several well-funded companies have entered the market and developed similar versions of Anritsu’s products, taking the lead in sheer sales order volume. We needed to get Anritsu back on our buyer’s “short list”. Electrical engineers are process-oriented. If they are comfortable with a tool and that tool satisfies their requirements, it’s difficult to get them to switch. VNA testers start at $100K and have a long sales cycle because they are considered a capital equipment investment.

The B2B Direct Marketing Campaign Objective

Our goal with the campaign was to bring Anritsu to the table with new customers that the sales force had not yet penetrated, creating awareness of the Anritsu VectorStar solution and ultimately generating face-to-face consultation meetings with qualified firms. A consultation requester who met key budget, purchase authority, need and timeframe-to-purchase criteria was considered an “A” category sales lead. In addition, the “B”-rated leads are prospect contacts with proven interest that opted in to future communications, but were not yet qualified.

Creative and Multi Channel Direct Marketing Strategy

The creative focused on the Mars Curiosity Rover, which had made a spectacularly successful landing on Mars about the time this project began. Engineers are inherently interested in the accomplishments of other engineers and how they solved tough problems. The Mars Curiosity Rover landing was one of the toughest, with thousands of measurements and calculations that had to be coded into the landing and could not be altered during the “seven minutes of terror” during which the Curiosity Rover descended to the planet’s surface. To quote from our letter to prospects:

“As it descended through the atmosphere of Mars, the spacecraft carrying the Curiosity Rover fired its rockets 79 times, went through five configuration changes, and slowed from 13,000 mph to a standstill. In the final operation, a “sky crane” was used to gently deposit the Curiosity on the surface since retro rockets would stir up too much dust.”

We pointed out the extreme precision this required, and then made the transition to the reader: we think of the NASA and JPL engineers as heroes, but you are required to make equally exacting measurements every day. That’s why you deserve an instrument like the VectorStar.

Letter to prospects linking the precision of the Mars Curiosity Rover with the precision of engineers’ every-day problem-solving.

The centerpiece of the multi channel direct marketing campaign was a direct mailing in a transparent tube containing a poster with an artist’s rendering of the Curiosity Rover’s descent sequence on one side (NASA has done renderings but the client did not want to violate any potential copyrights so we commissioned our own) with Anritsu product specs at the bottom. Our hopes were that engineers would mount these in their cubicles, thus providing a constant reminder of the VectorStar, complete with a call-to-action. We followed this up with an email on the same theme, and then began the telemarketing campaign.

Twenty-four to forty-eight hours after the email delivery, the calling team began to engage email and direct mail recipients. This multi-touch process had the effect of increasing the number of contact presentations and shortening the lead generation cycle. Most contacts recalled receiving the direct mail piece or email. Many were familiar with the offering and willing to engage. Program metrics are indicative of the effectiveness of this process with the high volume of completed call scripts as partial evidence.

The call-to-action was a free gift when a prospect completed a VectorStar sales presentation. We tested two offers: an Anritsu-branded backpack (appealing because our target likes to carry lots of gadgets around) versus a VNA technical manual valued at $50. Because of concerns about accepting gifts, government and government contractors were offered only the book.

Additionally, all prospects that registered their contact information were immediately provided a free download link for a relevant white paper.

Because the price of the VectorStar VNA is $51,000 and up, we knew that repeated contacts—and often multiple contacts—within the same company would be necessary to close the sale. The goal of the multi-touch approach was to start the process by gathering as much information as possible while gaining initial commitment to enter the lead pipeline.

Results

Overall, the campaign was highly successful. Based on the sales CRM reports, the program generated over $2.8 million dollars in the sales pipeline during the three-month campaign window, and many high sales potential leads are still being nurtured.

The campaign had a specific goal of developing 69 “A” leads that were considered opportunities in the CRM system. Through direct response and follow-up calling we developed 115 leads, which put us at 167% of the goal. In addition, the Calling Team gathered 426 opt-in contacts for continued nurturing and development.

The VectorStar campaign shows best practices for an effective multi-part B-to-B nurturing campaign: start with a memorable contact sequence, then follow up with multiple touches that develop the prospect into a sales-ready lead. Because so many recipients remembered and engaged with the mailing and follow-up email, it was easier to get them on the phone and easier to complete an initial sales conversation. Because of this effective warm-up approach, calls were completed faster, allowing more contacts to be made within the allotted time and budget. The result: more leads and sales opportunities.

Appendix

A brief look at benchmarked targets versus actual productivity metrics in several key areas clarifies why the program was so successful:

The most telling metric from this group is Total Scripts per Hour, because it quantifies the calling team’s ability to engage prospects with the Anritsu VectorStar offering. This ability to engage prospects and their receptivity to Anritsu’s offer of a technical consultation was the basis for the substantial number of lead conversions.

Over the life of the initiative, 2,094 scripts were completed during 540 calling hours. This number exceeded program goal by 260%. To look at it from another perspective, when the program launched, the expectation was set that 810 Anritsu VectorStar dialogues would take place. In fact, 2,094 Anritsu VectorStar dialogues occurred. The additional 1,284 Anritsu VectorStar dialogues over the course of the campaign celebrate its success.

For more information on this topic and other, request our free Case Studies.

* * * *

Laurie Beasley, President, Beasley Direct Marketing

Laurie B. Beasley is co-founder and president Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc., a Silicon Valley direct marketing agency that has managed search, email, online, direct mail, and demand generation campaigns for over a hundred companies. Ms. Beasley serves as president of the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California. She manages the Online Roundtable for the BMA Northern California www.NorCalBMA.org. She is an instructor of online marketing at UC Berkeley Extension and teaches in the Level 2 Certification program for the Online Marketing Institute. She frequently speaks on online marketing and demand generation topics for marketing organizations, including the Online Marketing Summit, Interactive Marketing Week, DMA Annual Conference, and the Marketing Executive Networking Group.

The post Case Study: B2B Direct Marketing Multichannel Campaign appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

In Part 1 of this series, we focused on local SEO (search engine optimization) and how to use it to improve your listings for local searches. Part 2 explored using PPC (pay-per-click) to boost local results. In this final installment, we cover the other ways you can optimize local search results for your business through citations, reviews, social media and local advertising. Please note that none of these are game-changers in themselves; they fill in the gaps and heighten the probability that your local customer will be able to find you more easily.

NAP Data Is Critical

We’ve mentioned the importance of NAP (name, address, telephone number) consistency before, but it bears repeating.

You must have a local number for best local results with search engines. An 800 number screams “national.” Using third-party tracking phone numbers to track how callers found you can be useful, but not in the context of local search. Search engines confronted by different phone numbers in different places for your business will discount your locality—that is to say, your business may not be perceived as truly local, and may appear lower down on the list of results.

Ensure that all your NAP data is consistent, no matter where it appears. This will help search engines to determine your physical location.

Citations

A citation is when your business is listed as a resource, but there may not be a recommendation or review. There might not even be a link back to your website.

Google gives citations a fair amount of importance in its algorithm for figuring out who’s important in a given business. There are many different kinds of citations:

• Sponsorships. When you sponsor a local charity, fundraiser, sports team, school program, etc., your business appears as a sponsor on the organization’s website (as well as in other materials). Think twice about sponsoring an organization that doesn’t have a website, because you don’t get the online magic of having links back to your site or at least a search engine ready to hand for customers.
• Current Relationships. Your customers, business partners or clients may list your business online.
• Social Citations. These overlap with sponsorships, and include local seminars, networking events, and so forth. If, for instance, one of your real estate agents is participating in a seminar for first-time home-buyers, but the seminar is sponsored by a bank, the mention of your business in the speaker lineup will be considered a citation by search engines.
• Job Board Listings. Listing your company on job boards falls into the citation category. For the purpose of local search, obviously local job boards are best for this.
• Directory Citations. The best directories are those with a list of specific services in your area—and they are also the most difficult. Some sites try to fool Google by creating a list of unrelated services but exercising no editorial review over it. They might be trying to boost their Page Rank, or they might be hosting advertising, but they’re not the best place to get listed because search engines (especially Google) rate directories according to their relevance and usefulness. The best directories are those with lists of related services where the directory is curated, with good links and—the best—reviews.

 Reviews

Getting a review on a legitimate site is helpful because Google and other search engines give a lot of weight to reviews—most sites that accept reviews make it hard to game the system with fake reviews. For Google, the most valuable place to get a review is on Google+. Even a “+1” counts. A +1 ranking is akin to “Liking” a Facebook page. The more +1’s you get, the more visible you are to Google. The relevancy of who gave you the review or the +1 is important; if you are a shoe store in Minneapolis and you got a +1 from a person in California, that won’t count as such as a +1 from a resident of Lake Elmo, MN. However, national review sites such as Yelp! or Angie’s List are location-sensitive and have local reviews.

Remember, reviews must be real reviews from real people. Google is extremely good at sniffing out fake reviewers; they tend to use the same language all the time, and review services or products that aren’t relevant to them. Don’t even think about signing up a service that promises hundreds of positive reviews: it’s a great way to get Google to downgrade your relevance.

Amazon scrutinizes purchase histories associated with reviewers. It doesn’t bar reviews from people who haven’t bought the product on Amazon, but these are given less weight. Amazon also doesn’t take down negative reviews—there’s too great a risk of being accused of pushing positive reviews and ditching the negatives, which would impugn the reputation of Amazon itself.

Solicit reviews from your happy customers. They’re by far the best source of good reviews. And don’t attempt to game the system, because it will come back to haunt you. A few years ago, we worked with a restaurant in San Francisco. The restaurant had been advised by a consultant to place reviews on a large, national review site and a leading national reservation service site. After three months of placing fake reviews on these sites, the sites figured it out. The review site banished them to a mention at the bottom of the results listing. The reservation service banned them completely. So don’t try to trick the system.

Social Networking Sites

Claim your listings for your company on Facebook, Foursquare, Yelp! and other social networking sites.  Depending on the site, search engines may not be able to crawl and give you “credit” in their results, but you can still increase your sales as a result of people finding your company page on the social network site.

Make sure these listings have the key information about your location, hours, services offered and contact information. Again, make sure your NAP is consistent across all of the social networking sites. These sites give you an opportunity to speak in a more informal, conversational way with your customers. They establish a community for customers and are another way your customers can contact you.

Social media sites are also a great place to post promotional and seasonal offers. If you are looking to drive people into a physical store, tie these offers to the actual visit. Try to post on a regular basis, even if it is just a brief paragraph about a local news item or a quick promotion. This regular posting will encourage repeat traffic from both customers and search engines.

Local Advertising

Do local online advertising if it makes sense in the context of your business. If the cost of advertising outweighs the potential benefit, rely on citations and reviews. But if advertising does make sense (and some services like Google AdWords are pretty cost-effective and allow you to control expenditures), it’s another little building block in the task of building local presence online.  It often will not help in your organic search listings, but the end result is driving local traffic to your site that you can turn into sales.

The Final Analysis

Cast a wide net. Get listed (with legitimate sites) wherever you can. Get real reviews wherever you can. You probably can’t have too many citations or reviews, as long as they are genuine. Use cost-effective local ads online if they make sense for your business. But remember: this is a process, not an event. You can’t just get some citations and reviews going and then walk away thinking, “Mission accomplished.” Reviews get old, directories fall into disuse, sites come and go. You must work at it over time to be successful.

* * * *

This post was authored by John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, of Beasley Direct Marketing. Contact John at jthyfault@beasleydirect.com.

John has more than 18 years of marketing, sales and product development experience, and he brings a proven track record of successful campaign, program and product development expertise. His knowledge of search engine optimization and marketing, combined with an in-depth understanding of customer identification, market analysis and segmentation, allows him to deliver high returns on our client’s marketing investment for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business markets.

Prior to working with Beasley Direct, John was Senior Client Services Project Director at ThirdAge.com, a first wave baby boomer lifestyle and community website. At ThirdAge he successfully led major client sponsorships for Fortune 100 companies in healthcare (Tylenol), financial services (American Century), technology (Intel & IBM) and consumer products areas (Revlon & Viactive). He was responsible for strategic and tactical goal setting, project management, new product creation and web site production. John previously worked in Channel Marketing and National Account Sales for IDG Books Worldwide, the publishers of the immensely popular “…For Dummies” book series. Additionally, he managed the wholesale distributor sales channel for Tor/Forge Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

John is active in local marketing associations, including the Direct Marketing Association, the Business Marketing Association and is currently serving on the board of directors for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association.

John has taught search engine marketing fundamentals extensively. He has led workshops for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association, Northern California Direct Marketing Association (DMAnc.org) and the Business Marketing Association. He also teaches Search Engine Marketing at (UCSC Extension, Silicon Valley.

The post Boost Your Regional Results through Local Search Marketing (Part 3): Local Online Marketing appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.