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

What will your biggest B2B marketing challenges be in 2011? And how can you overcome them to (over) deliver on your numbers while staying on budget?

These are the kinds of questions our colleagues at MarketingSherpa, our sister company, obsess over. To help them zero in on some data-driven answers, they’ve just launched a survey to benchmark best practices, tactics, and results.

If you have about 15 minutes to share your expertise by participating in this year’s study, you can access the survey via this link. In return, MarketingSherpa will send you a free copy of the 2011 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report’s Executive Summary, which will include highlights and key findings from the study, along with an invite to a webinar where study data is shared.

Senior Analyst Jen Doyle is already knee-deep in B2B marketing data to find insights to help marketers focus on key tools and tactics to fill pipeline in 2011, but was kind enough to answer a few questions about lead generation…

What are the most significant marketing challenges for B2B marketers today?

Jen Doyle: The greatest challenge for B2B marketers is generating high-quality leads to deliver to their sales teams. It is because of this challenge that marketing automation, lead nurturing and lead scoring have become critical for B2B organizations.

In order to optimize the efficiency of marketing and sales departments, walls are being broken down and these teams are working together to identify various stages of the buying cycle or the complex sale, and determining what marketing collateral or level of sales contact is appropriate for each stage.

Through this process, marketing’s role has changed from generating leads to generating and nurturing leads to the point that they are qualified and ready for sales involvement.

What are the top challenges to managing a B2B site and how can marketers overcome those challenges?

JD: The greatest challenges for managing a B2B site include developing content, attracting the right traffic, and optimizing for conversions.

Developing marketing content is an expensive and time consuming tactic, but essential for attracting and converting traffic. Marketers can overcome this challenge by repurposing and reformatting existing content for website purposes.

Most B2B organizations have a library of marketing content that has been developed over time, including case studies, presentations, etc. Why not repurpose this content to drive traffic and conversions on the website? For example, case studies can be re-formatted into blog posts or reformatted into a whitepaper to be used as an offer for conversion.

Search engine optimization and social marketing are excellent tactics for achieving an increased level of targeted traffic to B2B websites. Organizations need to first understand the social behaviors of their audience, what terms their audience is using to describe their products or services, and which of these targeted terms generate high volume traffic.

This research can be conducted by monitoring the activity of their target audiences on social media sites and conducting keyword research utilizing various online tools like Google’s keyword tool or Wordtracker to identify search volume and competition levels.

In order to optimize a B2B site for conversions, organizations need to continually test the performance of their traffic funnel, landing pages and lead forms. In order to accomplish this, a solid analytics solution and dedicated website management and design team are required.

How can marketing automation help with lead nurturing and lead management?

JD: By implementing a marketing automation program, organizations are able to elevate the effectiveness of their lead nurturing and management programs.

Select marketing automation programs allow organizations to automate the delivery of lead nurturing content based on lead behavior, such as visiting the website or opening an email, and attributes such as budget amount and timeframe for purchase.

Organizations that implement marketing automation programs are able to test the frequency and content of lead nurturing campaigns to improve performance. Marketing automation programs also enable marketers to automate the process of handing leads off to sales teams once they have met certain criteria or a certain lead score.

These are just a few of the benefits B2B organizations stand to receive from marketing automation programs.

Many lead scoring systems have become overly complex, often discouraging marketing and sales from using them diligently. Can marketing automation help here as well?

JD: Absolutely. Select marketing automation platforms simplify the lead scoring process by automating lead score calculations based on a predetermined set of rules. Rules can be based on lead attributes or behavior and are constantly changing based on activity.

Additionally, depending on the automation tool that is selected, updates made in CRM systems such as SalesForce can be used to calculate lead score. This allows for lead scores to automatically be adjusted if a sales person makes a certain indication on the lead in the CRM system. With automation features like these, lead scoring processes are simplified and streamlined.

If you would like to participate in MarketingSherpa’s 2010 B2B Marketing Benchmark Survey, you can gain access via this link.

Related Resources

B2B Success Stories: Four tests with gains of 21% to 254%

Social Media Marketing in Four Steps: A methodology to move from sporadic to strategic use based on research with 2,317 B2B and B2C marketers

Search Marketing: Tips on mastering the latest innovations in this mature category

Lead Generation, Research Topics

You know, I could tell you about the latest issue of the MarketingExperiments Quarterly Research Journal. But it represents three months of blood, sweat, and (virtual Internet) tears for myself and the rest of the MarketingExperiments team.

So my description would be highly biased, full of hyperbole, and probably be along the lines of… “Our latest Journal includes four never-before-published marketing research articles featuring 12 experiments and…well…this Journal is the single most important piece of writing since the invention of the Internet!”

Out of control. That’s why you don’t need to hear from me. Instead, I’ll share what our readers have been telling us about the Journal through email and Twitter. But first, here is your free digital copy…

(click Full Screen to zoom in)

“Wonderful publication!!! Many compliments from Italy.” – Andrea Berselli, Partner and COO at Markeven srl

“Take some time to read this ebook: The @mktgexperiments Research Journal, 132 pages of marketing+science” – @Sparksheet

“Fusing online/offline campaigns for impact (and how not to do it!) – new insight from Marketing Experiments” – @eugenieverney

“This is full of good stuff – ‘The MarketingExperiments Quarterly Research Journal, Q2 2010′” –@HomeportCrew

“@MktgExperiments new online journal out. Loads of great content, thorough and readable” – @dotpinkney

We’d love to hear what you think of the latest Research Journal. Share your comments below, email us, or fill out our seven-question survey.
Read more…

Landing Page Optimization, Lead Generation, Research Topics, Site Design, Social Media

You get home from a long day in your marketing department or agency. Whip up a quick dinner. And just when you’re about to bite into your arroz con pollo, you hear that dreaded ring.

I call this situation Dan’s Lament. Our associate editor, Daniel Burstein, was sounding off to me about this situation earlier today. For some reason, at least in his household, they only get one type of phone call around 7pm and that, of course, is the dreaded telemarketer.

Now telemarketing is illegal at some level in the United States, as it is in many other countries, and Dan is on the National Do Not Call Registry. Yet there are those loopholes that ensure his phone still rings at dinnertime. In the latest case, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wanted to discuss his fishing habits.

Surveys. Non-profits. Or my personal favorite…political push polls. They all have found a loophole.

The more you segment, the less you blindly dial for dollars

I’ve really grown to hate telemarketers. Not so much because they prevent foodie friends of mine like Dan from enjoying a good winter vegetable salad with fresh, in-season kale, but rather as a professional marketer.

The technology and science behind segmentation have helped marketers target their message so much better than before, so I feel professionally insulted that someone would think they can, precisely at the dreaded 7pm, offer sandwich-toting Dan something he didn’t already think about buying in a store or online.

So I am a fan of do-not-call registries…even if they are only marginally effective.

Now I know what many of you may be thinking. “Wait a minute, Boris, I don’t mean to interrupt Dan’s enjoyment of a hearty winter vegetable salad or pastrami on rye, but these lists are a major challenge for me…I need to leverage the human touch for an upsell or to nurture a complex sale.”

The reality is that cultural and corresponding regulatory changes have led to a certain shift in the utilization of call centers, from making to taking calls. It’s not bad news. It’s great news for you savvy marketers that have the resources to leverage a call center, if you know how to do it profitably.

Is automation right for you?

If you are a Web marketer reading this, you might be asking yourself “what does this have to do with me?” However, looking at marketing holistically may be precisely where you can maximize return on your marketing dollars, as the automation afforded by the digital medium is not a one-size-fits-all solution to all sales processes.

Yes, it’s cheaper to sell online. Yet you may be doing a better job of selling and cross-selling over the phone, even though it costs you more. The question is where the higher net profit lies.

As the resident KPI (that’s key performance indicator) Guy at MarketingExperiments, among other things, I want to reintroduce you to a KPI that is critical to inbound marketing. It is the same KPI what would have been applied to a telemarketing campaign just a few short years ago: cost per acquisition (CPA).

The obvious use of this metric is to understand how much you can afford to spend on a media buy. You may be more familiar with this metric in the demand generation realms (paid search, affiliate marketing, lead gen, etc.). However, in conjunction with a bottom-line metric, such as revenue (preferably, lifetime) per visitor (RPV), it can also provide you with critical insights for directing your marketing efforts and formulating your messaging.

Even though your site can now do many things that have replaced telemarketing – from further qualifying a lead to completing an order to even getting that upsell – don’t let technology guide your decisions. Depending on the nature of your product, the human touch can be so much more effective for any or all of these steps.

So the best thing to do is… wait for it… test!

By varying the emphasis you place on calls to action that lead to a human interaction (phone number, live chat, call-me form), both in the layout of your pages (location, graphical weighting) and their prominence in the order process (from focusing the option as the primary action to not even mentioning it).

Experimenting with live chat is its own subject, as you can test how quickly (if at all) you want to turn the online chat into a phone conversation. You might even test a click-to-call button, although be wary of spam (and if you market in India, strict regulations).

What you’re trying to discover is whether the increased cost of acquiring a customer is offset or surpassed by an increase in closed orders, upsells, or higher-quality leads (e.g., for a complex sale, how does the increase in calls help your lead management efforts).

In other words, you will need to compare the change in CPA to the change in RPV (and depending on the nature of your business, both may need to be adjusted for the customer’s projected lifetime cost and value).

You have to be careful with how you juggle the numbers, as there are many potential pitfalls. Remember that your ultimate goal is increased profits. Depending on your business plan, your primary or close secondary goal is likely increased profits in the foreseeable future or over the customer’s lifetime. If adding human interaction results in sufficiently higher revenue per website visitor, it may be worth the extra cost.

But you’ll only know if you test. And use the right KPI.

How do you use inbound marketing, telesales, and customer service? What KPIs do you use to measure your success? Share your triumphs and ideas in the comments section of this post or start a conversation with your peers in the MarketingExperiments Optimization group.

Ecommerce, Lead Generation, Marketing Insights, Research Topics

At our web clinics and optimization training workshops, two of the most frequent questions  are: “What else can I test?” and “Do you have a good example?” To answer these queries with practical test ideas and examples, we’re pleased to present our new “What else can I test?” column.

More than 60% of US online retailers are seeing shopping cart abandonment rates of over 20% this year, according to a recent eMarketer article. Among the most cited and common reasons for that abandonment: just doing comparison shopping, lack of money, looking for a coupon, and no alternative payment methods available.

In a recent survey with one of our research partners, we found that the number one reason for abandonment was shipping prices, followed by “I did not intend to purchase at this moment.”

Here are a handful of ideas, drawn from our research, that can help combat those issues and decrease your cart abandonment rates:

1) Offer alternative payment methods. Credit cards are still the most popular method of payment with about 55% of online retail purchase volume in 2008 (eMarketer), followed by debit cards with 27%. The forecast for next five years shows credit cards as the #1 payment type. However, alternative payment types like debit cards, Bill Me Later, PayPal, and Google Checkout are growing fast in popularity.

Test offering any of these alternative methods and don’t forget to promote them in your shopping cart as well as on your homepage and product pages. It’s important to let visitors know all the payment options available as soon as they land on your website. See examples:

Alternative method of payments - example 1

Alternative method of payments - example 2

Note: Some online retailers are seeing a significant improvement in average order value by providing a Bill Me Later option.

2) State your shipping prices or rules upfront. Simply state your shipping prices or rules in a visible area in your website and cart page. The best locations are next to the shopping cart, page header or footer or within content in the product pages. See examples:

Shipping prices upfront - example 1

Shipping prices upfront - example 2

3) Offer exclusive products online. These can help with shoppers who are just browsing and researching. You may need to do some research to find attractive products that you won’t lose money on if you only offered them online. See example:

Online exclusive offer example

4) Put your nav bar to work for your cart. It’s a common mistake to think that the navigation bar needs to stay the same in your cart page. I understand usability might be the reason, but you don’t want to offer more links to your visitors to abandon the cart. Instead your nav bar can become your center of “anxiety relief.” Use it to state your shipping prices, customer support options (phone number, email, chat), method of payments available, and security seals. The nav bar can help reduce your visitors’ anxiety by making them feel more secure and comfortable with your checkout process. (If you don’t have a navigation bar use the bottom section of your cart page). See example:

Anxiety relief nav bar example

5) Promote your promo codes. The feeling of missing a promotion because you don’t have a promo code can be frustrating. It actually can lead to abandoning the cart to go and search for promo codes online. Instead of wasting your visitors’ time, offer them a way to get promo codes directly from you. GetElastic provides a great example of how to do this. Another option, if visitors come from a channel that you can control (email, PPC, banner, affiliate), is to have the promo code prefilled for them. You can use the visitors’ session or URL to carry over the promo code value and use it right in the shopping cart page.

6) Plug in a progress bar. This is a very simple and easy update to your cart and checkout pages. Especially for those online retailers that have a short (two to four steps) checkout process, having a progress bar can help reduce visitors’ anxiety and encourage them to continue. For longer checkouts (more than four steps), I’d recommend testing first reducing the number of steps and then testing a progress bar. See example:

Progress bar example

7) Brand your checkout process. Along with the progress bar, naming your checkout process can reduce visitors’ anxiety. By naming I refer to using adjectives to describe the nature of your checkout process. For example, “easy checkout”, “1-2-3 checkout”, “express checkout”, etc. Test different names powerful enough that can create a sense of relief in your visitors’ mind. See example:

Branded checkout example

For more tactics and suggestions on how to optimize an eretail website, join us for our Sept. 30 web clinic: Ecommerce Optimization: A holiday playbook for procrastinators.

Ecommerce, Lead Generation, Practical Application

At our web clinics and optimization training workshops, two of the most frequent questions  are: “What else can I test?” and “Do you have a good example?” To answer these queries with practical test ideas and examples, we’re pleased to present our new “What else can I test?” column.

As I wrote in a previous post, optimizing for lead generation is a more complex task than meets the eye. However, one area where you can run tests quickly and easily is with short lead capture forms (see example at right: short form embedded in product page).

2. Headline and call to action. These two elements together can make a significant improvement to your site’s lead generation rate. However, it’s critical that they communicate value and that there is continuity between them.

Both the headline and call to action can be used to re-state, clarify or quantify the value proposition or emphasize a specific benefit. Continuity refers to how well the page uses the call to action to confirm or reaffirm the promise of the headline and the supporting content elements in between.

What you’ll want to test with these elements can vary widely. But if your page doesn’t have continuity between the headline and call to action, your first test should be changing them so they’re more closely aligned. They don’t need to match word-for-word, but should be clearly and intuitively connected. 

[Example above right shows a form headline and call to action with continuity; click to enlarge.]

3. Form design. Some of the best lead capture forms are those that don’t even look like a form. Forms can create a lot of friction for prospects, whether it’s due to the length or the questions and required fields, or just the look and feel. As a result, form design is an area where you have latitude to alter several factors at once.

So where should you start? The more the form can be associated with the surrounding content of the page, the better. You don’t want it to be totally obscured, but to look and feel like a natural extension of the content, leading prospects to take that next step — sign up for access, request or download more information, and so on.

Test removing borders and boxes around the forms, or squares or dark colors that set it off from the content. In the example image, you’ll see that the short lead capture form is embedded in the content to connect with the prospect’s thought process.

[Example above right shows a form integrated with content; click to enlarge.]

Let me know if you decide to test any of these variations with your short lead capture forms, and look for the next column, where I’ll be looking at test ideas for ecommerce shopping carts.

Not sure what you should test next? Want to share your testing ideas, questions or feedback on this topic? Use the comments section below or tweet me at: @anagabydiaz

Lead Generation, Marketing Q&A, Practical Application

If you’ve got a B2B website, you’re always looking for ways to generate more leads online. But while recent research shows 71% of B2B marketers view their site as one of the most important marketing tools, only 31% said their site is “highly effective” at generating leads.

That leaves a lot of room for testing and improving business results. However, optimizing for lead generation is not as straightforward as optimizing for conversion rate.

Conversion rate is the final metric that decides whether or not your online process/funnel is working. In contrast, lead generation only tells you a portion of the story. The leads you generate are really the start of a long process of qualification steps, both online and offline. If you don’t pay attention to each step, you will never be able to get the best out of this process.

How to use friction to your advantage

Think of the process of optimizing for lead generation as two interconnected dials. Each dial represents a step in your online process. One dial increases volume of leads by reducing friction. The second dial increases quality of the lead by increasing friction.

You can increase friction in several ways, such as adding more form fields or steps in the funnel process. Or, you can reduce it by subtracting various page elements or process steps. To adjust your lead flow, turn the dials: more friction will yield higher lead quality; less friction will increase lead volume.

Too much friction can make your visitors quit, but not enough friction will fill your pipeline with leads of a lower quality. So you need to test different approaches to determine what balance works best for your lead generation process.

Before you turn that dial …

Three keys to keep in mind when testing your lead generation process:

1. Choose the right time to add more friction. Think of your lead generation process as a personal introduction to someone. The moment you meet someone you don’t ask for a lot of personal information. If you do, you scare people away. The same concept applies here. For example, in a recent experiment, we tested moving the phone number field from the first step to the second step. Lead generation rate increased by 68% and the conversion rate remained stable.
2. Prioritize your requests properly. Think carefully about what information you ask first, second, and so on. It is important to keep a natural flow as you add and subtract friction elements. A good way to check for this with your pages and processes is to review every step and consider two questions: 1) Do we need this information? 2) Do we need it at this stage?
3. Pay close attention to your final conversion rate. We tested a three-step process against a four-step process. As expected, the three-step process had a higher lead generation rate. However, once the sales team got the leads and started following up on them, they found that leads from the four-step process were more qualified and easier to close. Bottom line: the four-step process had a lower lead generation rate, but ultimately a higher final conversion rate (sales).

To learn more about applying this concept, see our recent research brief, What’s working now in optimization or join our team at our optimization workshop at MarketingSherpa’s B2B Summit.

Internet Marketing Strategy, Lead Generation, Practical Application