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

One of the easiest things to do to get a lift on a lead generation offer is to reduce the number of form fields. We hear it all the time because it works. The problem is, it only works so well and then you start seeing diminishing returns. Plus there’s always the issue of the quality of leads you’re getting from your form. The less fields you have, the lower quality your leads are.

So how do you get a lift on a lead gen page without reducing the number of fields? Well, there are a couple of things you should understand before I get into that…
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“She was here on earth to make sense of its wild enchantment and to call each thing by its right name.” – Boris Pasternak (Doctor Zhivago)

Sometimes, as marketers, this is one of our biggest challenges. We must make sense of the “wild enchantment” inherent in our audience so we can call each offering we have by its right name. After all, the way we think about our products can be vastly different from the way our audience thinks about them. This is why specific words matter, and for more than just SEO.

Let’s take a look at a recent test conducted by MarketingSherpa (sister company to MarketingExperiments), to determine which words best tap into the audience’s motivations. Read more…

I’m hoping that one thing you have learned from reading the MarketingExperiments blog is that there isn’t much in the marketing world that can’t, or shouldn’t be, tested and optimized. We are used to looking at the top of the funnel – optimizing landing pages, website headline copy, email campaigns, etc., but what happens after you capture that lead? Can’t the buying process be tested and optimized as well?

The short answer is, yes, the funnel can be optimized – and it should be! Before you can optimize lead progression through the funnel, you must first identify what that process looks like.

At MarketingSherpa, we have just launched our annual B2B Marketing Benchmark Survey to identify key tactics B2B marketers can use for funnel optimization, and to ensure success in an increasingly challenging environment.

As we embark on this new study, I’d like to look at a key chart that was included in MarketingSherpa’s 2011 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report. We asked 935 B2B marketers what funnel stages they have identified for their organization. The results are presented in the following chart: Read more…

In the MECLABS Conversions Group, we spend a lot of our time trying to reduce the friction and anxiety inherent in our Research Partners’ sales funnels …since we have less control of the visitor’s motivation or the value of the product, service or incentives.

However, I have one Research Partner that values friction in their lead generation process. Read more…

A complex buying process is, well, complex. And as H.L. Mencken said, “Complex problems have simple, easy to understand, wrong answers.”

So, if you have a buying process that requires more than grabbing a candy bar of the shelf, today’s Web clinic at 4 p.m. EST is for you – Converting Leads to Sales: How one company generated $4.9 million in additional sales pipeline growth in only 8 months. Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Managing Director (CEO) of MECLABS, and special guest Brian Carroll (author of “Lead Nurturing for the Complex Sale”) will help you find the right answer for your company based on our lab’s discoveries.

But first, we turned to your marketing peers for tips you can use. Here are some of our favorite insights… Read more…

Every day I hear a of some new-fangled thing that makes my head spin with all the implications. At MarketingSherpa B2B Summit in San Francisco, the attendees were electrified with technology-inspired buzz in spite of this terrible economy.

It reminded me of the time just before the tech bubble burst in the late ‘90s when everyone was giddy over the possibilities of the Internet. Only this time, the wild enthusiasm is tempered with the pragmatism and worry about the state of our economy. And no doubt some of us gray hairs remember the foolishness of the bubble from the ‘90s (well, and maybe even our own more recent home-buying exuberance).

I’m not sure if JigSaw or the Apple iPad is creating more buzz in the business world. I wrote about the coming JigSaw tidal wave a few weeks ago, so let me share my thoughts on Apple fever this week. Read more…