MarketingExperiments Blog: Research-driven optimization, testing, and marketing ideas

According to MarketingSherpa’s 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report, lead generation is the top priority for B2B marketers. Yet it is also the second most challenging business objective for marketers.

Part of the problem with capturing quality leads is that there are quite simply an infinite number of ways to do it. And every time someone comes up with a new way of doing it, a layer of complexity is added to the fundamental question every B2B marketer asks:

What is the best way to acquire leads for my business?

At our recent Email Summit  in Las Vegas, Jim Ducharme, Community Manager with GetResponse, interviewed MECLABS Executive Director of Applied Research, Brian Carroll and asked him this question.

You can watch the interview below to see what he had to say.

In the 5-minute video below, you’ll learn:

• How testing tactics can help you choose the best one for your business
• Why driving leads with a single event is ineffective
• 3 steps you need to implement for effective lead generation
• 3 questions your potential leads are asking on your site

Read more…

The landing page is the hub of most modern marketing departments. Think about it. Even beyond digital marketing – from print ads, to TV ads, to a QR code on a table tent in a restaurant – almost every aspect of your marketing campaigns drive potential customers to a landing page.

That is why landing page optimization can deliver such an impressive ROI. So I talked to my colleagues in the MECLABS Conversion Group to help identify the most common landing page mistakes they see every day.

These marketing optimization researchers help improve performance on landing pages, from Fortune 500 B2B companies to small e-commerce sites, every day. They’re the kind of folks that produce a triple-digit lift in the morning, and then shoot me with a Nerf gatling gun after lunch.

Here on the MarketingExperiments blog, we’ll explore the most common landing page mistakes they see encounter in their research, to help you increase conversion and improve your marketing performance.

E-commerce sites treating new and returning visitors the same

“This mistake is specifically targeted toward ‘landing pages,’ such as category/product pages,” according to Associate Director of Optimization, Adam Lapp. “A landing page isn’t always the neat, one-page, no navigation, clear headline type pages we typically think of. A landing page is simply the first page visitors arrive at.”

Let’s look at an example and see what Adam would think of it. I’ll go onto Google and search for “Patagonia jacket” to see how both a brand and a reseller e-commerce site (one with good SEO, might I add, since I’m just clicking on the top links I get) handle new customers …

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There’s something about putting a video on YouTube and watching the view count climb as more and more people find your message and click play. Think of all that time you wasted hitting the refresh button over and over on your last video.

It’s thrilling because there’s always a chance it will go viral and reach one million views and you’ll finally be able to buy that yacht you’ve always wanted from the bonus you’ll get.

Of course, it never turns out that way. But, according to a recent experiment we ran with a Research Partner, there is one thing you can do to ensure that more people who see your video will actually click the play button.

It’s simple really — almost too simple. But it works. All you need to do is adjust your first frame to something somewhat interesting.

Here’s the test we recently ran on one YouTube video with two different first frames …

“There are no expert marketers; there are only experienced marketers and expert testers.” – Dr. Flint McGlaughlin

Once upon a time, marketers could claim they knew what marketing collateral would generate the highest response from the customer. Now, with the advent of online testing, it has become more challenging to “make definite assertions” about which treatment will perform better.

The best we can do is pose  a hypothesis.

Of course, it never hurts when your hypothesis turns out to be absolutely right.

So to give you a 50/50 chance at gloating (even over a lucky guess), you can hypothesize which call-to-action performed better in the slides below.

Once you’ve studied the slides, go ahead a leave your hypothesis for which call-to-action won (and why) in the comments.

The commenter with the best hypothesis will get the recognition of his or her peers and be featured in the body of this post with a link to their site.

Here is the test we will highlight in today’s 4:00 p.m. (EST) Web clinic: Minor Changes, Major Lifts: How headline and call-to-action optimization increased conversion 45%.

Read more…

How can you get the greatest amount of return on the least amount of marketing investment?

We’ll share our own top discoveries about low-hanging marketing optimization fruit in our next free Web clinic on Wednesday – Minor Changes, Major Lifts: How headline and call-to-action optimization increased conversion 45% – but first we want to hear from you.

Share what you’ve learned in the comments section of this blog post. And here are a few insights from your peers …

  Read more…

It’s happening in companies across the world as we speak … the highest paid person’s opinion (HiPPO) wins the day in the marketing department.

But does the person with the higher title and the higher salary always understand which headline (or PPC ad or landing page copy) will convert the highest?

Take a look at a recent test from our own labs.

Read more…