Symptoms of the decline: Over the past four months we’ve noticed a pronounced trend: prospect lead form submissions are declining in raw numbers and in percentages of clicks-to-submissions. Yet other forms of campaign measurement, such as inbound calls and web activity, are rising. We’ve noticed this in the context of several different campaign types and companies, so we’re convinced it isn’t a trend restricted to one type of campaign or industry.

For example, we recently helped a client create a banner ad campaign that ran on multiple web properties. The clicks exceeded any other banner ad campaign we’ve run on same properties and for similar offers. However the submission of prospect information to lead forms were subpar. The client was left scratching their heads, until they discovered a radical spike in traffic on the product pages on the corporate website, which coincided with this campaign. They wondered if there were any other factors causing this anonymous web traffic, such as a press release or trade show. After investigating, the client formulated the conclusion that the banner ad campaign was the main, if not the only reason for the spike in web traffic.

For another client, we ran a three-month pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaign directing prospects to fill out a form to receive further information. The average cost-per-click was acceptable and overall volume of clicks was on target. However the percentage of lead forms submitted were below industry metrics. We tweaked the form page several different ways, hoping to increase the form submission rate, but nothing seemed to move the needle. We were getting discouraged until we received the call center report and realized that 800# call traffic had gone through the roof during the period of this PPC campaign. We searched for whether there could have been any other reason for this increase (besides the PPC campaign) and we could find none. Our only possible conclusion was that the PPC campaign drove the significant phone traffic.

Four theories on why: Several other oddities in campaign performance over the last quarter lead me to conjecture about what is happening. Why are prospects failing to fill in their contact information on lead forms? I have four theories:

1)    They don’t want a salesperson calling them, so they don’t fill out the form. People suspect that the minute they fill out a registration page form, a salesperson targets their backs. And they’re probably right. Prospects increasingly want to dictate the time and terms of when they have a conversation with sales. They may form an interest in your product due to your campaign, but rather than fill out the lead form, they visit the website or call a sales 800# to get more information. Tip: Use track-able 800#s on your marketing campaigns, so you can attribute from which campaign a lead is coming.

2)    They are browsing on a mobile device, and if the lead form isn’t optimized for mobile, it may simply too hard to fill out. Thirty to sixty percent of browsing activity is from a mobile device. If the lead form isn’t optimized for mobile, then it may be difficult to read and fill out from a mobile device. Tip: Lead forms viewed from mobile need to be narrower in width, have bigger text, shorter forms, and bigger buttons to be more user friendly.

3)    They want to research on their own.  Prospects are taking more control of their information gathering. Instead of responding directly to your campaign, they may instead go to the website or social media to do initial research. Or they may pick up the phone and call you. All of which are good things, but we need to offer good organization and content on the website. Tip: Install an anonymous website visitor tracking system, which will allow you to see from which company IP addresses visitors are coming. Sales can then target those companies in future outreaches.

4)    They are looking for better or different content. Prospects are getting more demanding about the quality and objectivity of the information you provide. They may also be looking for shorter or more in-depth content, depending where they are in their product purchase process. Tip: Provide a variety of content in a multitude of formats. It should be content that suits every phase of the decision process, from short demos to in-depth guides and application notes.

As we lose control of the prospect product research process, we need to provide more convenient, user-friendly ways for them to gather information, talk to the sales department, and evaluate your product on THEIR terms. This means campaign planning involves a lot more than just having a landing registration page form ready when we launch the campaign. We need to make sure all of our ducks are in a row, including an excellent website experience, a variety of well-developed content, and convenient access to speak with a sales rep.

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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 CaliforniaDMAnc.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 Institutewww.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 Why Have Prospects Stopped Submitting Contact Info on Lead Forms? And What Can You Do about It? appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

Content Marketing Tips

In our first blog about content marketing, we mentioned that sharing original content is important. The whole purpose of content marketing is predicated on having original content, because it is intended to demonstrate expertise, insight and knowledge in your particular field to customers and potential customers. “Curating” other people’s content does not accomplish this objective. Publishing someone else’s content occasionally is fine as long as it underscores your own messaging, but the bulk of your content should be original and unique.

Why Does My Content Have To Be Original?

“Author authority” is a concept Google developed to assign value to sites and social media streams that feature original content, content that is developed by you and is unique to your site, blog, etc. Author authority is more valued by Google and other search engines than content that you share from another source. So you get SEO brownie points for original content.

The more SEO brownie points you have (not a Google term; blame it on Beasley Direct Marketing), the greater your visibility on the Internet. Visibility combined with demonstration of your expertise leads to several very good things:

• Increased traffic to your site from sites on which your content is posted
• Increased reputation on the Web for your person-to-person communications (sales team, marcom team, etc.)
• Increased visibility within search engines, resulting in higher ranking and more search traffic
• Increased visibility and authority within social media
• Increased trust
• Increased revenue

Above all, your content must be targeted to your audience, relevant to their needs, and accessible.

Elements of Good Content

Can you tell your audience something that no one else is telling them? Good content is quality information with unique insights—which is not quite as easy as it sounds. It means you need to know what other people in the field are saying, and avoid merely repeating it. It means you need to know what your customers are thinking and feeling; what problems are they trying to solve? What issues have they faced trying to solve those problems—can you tell them how to avoid these issues? In particular, do you know what difficulties or issues people face when dealing with your competitors? Can you show them that you are different? Can you “make it stop hurting”?

Timeliness

Timeliness is also important. Are there changes in your industry that customers need to know about? Keep abreast of industry news and news in general. Is there something going on in the world that directly affects your business and its customers? For example, let’s say you sell automotive parts used by long-haul trucking firms. A strike by Malaysian port workers will adversely affect deliveries of palm oil, which is used to make biodiesel. A shortage of palm oil will lead to decreased production of biodiesel, followed by an increase in the price of conventional diesel fuel. You are not affected by the palm oil shortage, but your customers certainly will be, and they will be grateful to you for calling their attention to the issue. If you happen to sell a fuel system that increases miles per gallon, so much the better!

Language

Use language with which your intended audience will resonate. If you are selling cosmetics, language such as “fresh and flirty!” works. This would not be as well received by an audience seeking financial advisory services. Know when to use informal language and when to stick to more sedate prose.

The importance of good headlines cannot be over-emphasized. Headlines must serve two purposes: SEO and getting your audience to read the content. For SEO purposes, you must have at least one keyword in the title, and more is better. More is better, that is, unless it forces you to write a boring headline. If the headline is uninteresting, your audience will go on to the next thing, assuming that the content will be as stultifying as the headline. Let’s say you have written a blog piece on the cost of biodiesel in the U.S. You might have written a headline such as “An Analysis of the Cost of Biodiesel in the United States.” This has the right keywords, but it also could be used to aid someone coping with insomnia. How about “10 Reasons Biodiesel Costs Too Much”? It still has good keywords for SEO purposes, but sounds like a more interesting read.

Keep Content Short and Sweet

For the purpose of content marketing, content should tend towards the short and sweet end of the spectrum. Keep your articles focused and if the content needs more detail, write a second article. Some experts advocate 2000 words, or about 4 to 5 pages of content., as your target.. Remember though that this is a rule of thumb and well written content is your goal, not an arbitrary number of words.

Content must be easy to share. Make sure you have social media buttons on all your social media feeds that allow people to instantly post the location of your content to their own followers. If you are promoting a longer piece such as a white paper, use short-form urls to make it easy for people to click and share. Short-form urls can be generated at no cost at https://bitly.com/. Hootsuite users can use Hootsuite’s built-in url shrinker when posting.

Ensure that every piece you publish is identified with the author or the organization to establish author authority. Have the author’s name and bio with links to the website and other social media streams. Don’t forget to point to the content from the author’s profiles on Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter and other locations. Anything and everything that points back to the author/authority will add to your luster as an expert and authority in your field.

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About the Author

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’s Extension in Silicon Valley.

The post Content Marketing Tips: Making Your Content Work for You appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is a newish term for an oldish concept. That is, surround your customers with information and education they need to feel motivated to do business with you. Today, we have more ways than ever to do this: blogs, websites, social media, video, email, e-newsletters, and so forth. These tools allow marketers to become publishers in their own right. They tend to be far more cost-effective and far-reaching than the more traditional communications channels of direct mail, advertising and public relations.

Furthermore, content marketing does have its drawbacks. It cannot be relied upon to create a direct cause-and-effect. That is, running a blog piece will usually not result in a direct sale. It is also very difficult to measure the results; content marketing is somewhat like public relations in this respect. However, it is not a “warm fuzzy,” either. Any marketing program should be using a variety of channels. The intent is to reach customers so that its messages come from multiple different sources. Content marketing is one of the many tools with which a company can deliver messages. Also, messages can be delivered to its customers and prospects to “condition” them to purchase.

As in any marketing effort, be clear about who your customers are and what they need to know. In the final analysis, have clear messaging and clear objectives for everything you do.

Avoid the Sales Pitch

Content marketing is not exclusively about selling. If all you do is talk about how great your product/service is, customers will quickly turn off your message. You should be offering insights and information that customers need. Are you in the retail window treatments business? Create videos that teach customers how to successfully install curtain rods and mini-blinds. Are you a manufacturer of athletic equipment? Create a series of white papers about how to avoid sports injuries of various types. Or, how to select shoes that will help people to stay healthy.

If you consistently offer solid information that solves customers’ problems—or better yet, helps them to avoid problems—you build a reservoir of trust and goodwill that cannot be achieved any other way.

Creating Content

Creating original content can be time-consuming and expensive. You may already have a treasure trove of content waiting to be exploited. Comb through your library of white papers, articles, presentations, and videos. Reach outside of your particular area to see if other areas of the organization have content that can be mined for the purpose. Chances are, you can repurpose existing content for use across several channels before you ever have to create new content.

In developing (or repurposing) content, keep in mind the problems customers need to solve, information they need to make a selection, and what issues might be preventing them from purchasing. For instance, if you are in the retail home improvement business, you may have many customers who enjoy DIY projects and understand how to approach them. You might have more customers still if you provide detailed information on how to build a brick barbeque, install drywall, or repair a broken window. In conclusion, the more customers rely on you for good information and answers to their questions, the more inclined they will be to do business with your company.

How To Deliver Content to Your Customers

Start with your website. This is where most customers will begin their quest for information. Make sure that your website content is thorough and useful. Monitor customers’ questions and assure that they can find and access the answers easily on your site. Some types of businesses may profit from an interactive “column” where they can pose questions and get prompt answers—all of which are published on the site. Customer questions—and even customer complaints—are an excellent way to gain insight into the type of content with which customers will resonate.

Once your website is rich in useful content, start a blog. The blog should be hosted on your website for search engine optimization (SEO). If your blog is hosted on a blogging service, every hit and “like” will attribute to the blog service, not to your company. If the blog is on your site, you get the SEO benefit. Your blog should be refreshed with new content every seven to 10 days to keep people coming back. Don’t forget to announce every new blog post to Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and other social media sites that work well with your business. Most blogging software allows you to set this up automatically.

White Papers

White papers are longer pieces that go into greater detail than blog posts. They can be distributed in many ways:

• Announce availability on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc., with links to the material on your site.
• Create a blog with some of your top points, with a link to the whitepaper.
• Provide your white papers to other, related sites and blogs (making sure there are links back to the material and to your site).
• Some whitepapers can be submitted to print or online publications as articles.
• Lastly, create a YouTube video (three minutes or so) that covers the main points and provides links to your material. This doesn’t have to be expensive, but you do have to have a punchy script and someone who is well spoken to narrate it. There is a lot of inexpensive software (and even apps) to help create videos on a slim budget.

In addition to acting as teasers for white papers, videos are an excellent way to push content to your marketplace. Depending on the nature of your business, you can educate customers about your product or service category. Show them how to use products, or just express a point of view. These can be posted on your site, on YouTube, Flickr or any number of other venues. Remember to keep videos as short and sweet as possible.

Social Media

Social media is one of the best ways to distribute content, and can be used in a variety of ways:

• Take short bits from your content and publish on Facebook, Twitter, etc. with links to the full content.
• If you have interesting product photos, publish them.
• You don’t necessarily have to create 100% original content yourself. Curate interesting content that corroborates or compliments your messaging with links to the original content. (Obviously, you want to avoid doing this with the competition’s content!)

If you have built a useful emailing list (and you should be doing this anyway), ask people to sign up for an e-newsletter. (Don’t just send out a newsletter without opt-in, as this could be viewed as a violation of the anti-spam laws.) The contents of the newsletter can be pilfered from existing content and/or curated content. Make it easy to skim, light on graphics and optimized for mobile viewing.  In conclusion, remember—give your customers information they can use to solve problems or use in their lives or work.

Don’t Forget To Optimize Your Content for SEO

In the rush to get content out there, don’t forget that you need to optimize it for SEO so that people can find it. Consequently, titles are critical because that’s nearly all that people see in a search engine listing, so they need to be gripping.

As blogger Chris Irby puts it, “The title of your blog post is basically pulling double duty. It needs to be relevant for the benefit of the search engines, yet compelling enough to grab the attention of your human readers. Make your title too clever or obtuse, and it’ll become one of Google’s best kept secrets. Make it too utilitarian, and your readers will be too busy yawning to click over to your blog and read.”

So your title has to be both intriguing to the reader and contain keywords that people will use in searching for your topic (enabling search engines to find your content in the appropriate context).

Titles are often an afterthought, but they deserve as much care and attention as you put into the body of the content. Take your time and don’t rush it. Think through which keywords need to be in the title and then come up with something attention-grabbing as well. It won’t do any good if the search engine reliably delivers your content, but the reader thinks it’s going to be a boring read. The title should always pay off on the nature of the content. If you have a funny piece, create a funny title. If your piece deals with a serious subject such as cancer, the title should be somber but still compelling.

Also, assure that the critical keywords are spread throughout the content. Some writers start by listing the desired keywords—not a bad practice.

Remember the Basics

Finally, stick to the basics of grammar, punctuation and other rules of good writing. We don’t have room to go over it here, but it is essential that your content is literate and carefully constructed and edited. Of course, bad writing, typos and poor grammar will turn your readers off. One of the best references on good writing is “The Elements of Style” (4th Edition) by William Strunk, E. B. White and Roger Angell. It’s short, easy to use, and you’ll never mistake a dangling participle for a dangling preposition again.

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About the Author

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. She 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.

The post Content Marketing and the Sales Funnel: An Indirect Road to Direct Sales appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.