Moving to Sausalito

I’m very excited to announce that after 19 years in the Financial District, we are moving our office to Sausalito as of August 1, 2009. As many of you know, I love sculling on the Bay and it was an easy decision to move once we found the perfect location. I think the view from our office says it all.

I have been rowing by this location for a number of years and had no idea that I would actually be able to work here as well. Richardson Bay is such a beautiful spot with the seals, birds and expansive vistas. This week I rowed around the yacht that is currently docked in the Bay with its helicopter on deck. It really doesn’t seem as large as they say when you’re right next to it.

Hope to see you all at our office in Sausalito at some point and I also hope that you are able to enjoy all that this spectacular Bay has to offer.

Take a cold, hard look at your demand creation materials

Sometimes the best thing we can do to improve our marketing efforts is to gain fresh perspective. One exercise that I often do with clients is to walk through their library of campaigns as if we are prospects. We do our best to put aside everything we know about the campaigns from a marketing management perspective, and look at each lead generation piece with new eyes—eyes of the potential customer.

I know what you’re thinking. Look at our campaigns? As if you’re not doing that enough? Even if you’re mired in demand creation campaigns all day long, sometimes it takes the simple act of spreading everything out on your conference table, and pretending to be your prospect.

Select one prospect segment (by vertical, perhaps) or one solution, gather up everything you’ve worked on in the last 2-3 quarters, and take a good look at what you’re sending out into the marketing universe. With your customer and prospect hats on, ask yourself these questions:

1. Is your content company and feature-centric or does it focus on customer needs and challenges?
2. Do you provide a wide variety of offers so that you can test internally what offers engage prospects?
3. Can you use your content to segment your prospects’ level of interest and start their journey towards a lead nurture program that is relevant to their needs?
4. How does your site perform as a demand generation tool? Are you able to measure its’ impact?
5. Are there logical, relevant, and respectful entry points embedded in your campaigns for prospects to provide further information about themselves in exchange for content deep-dives or offers (such as white papers)?
6. Are you able to track users’ behavior and measure it in a meaningful way to indicate their propensity to purchase and qualify a handoff to sales?

Your answers to these questions will most likely highlight for you what areas of demand creation output need improvement from a content, metric, or information collection standpoint.

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If you’d like a helping hand in performing this assessment, or if your areas for improvement become painfully clear, feel free to give us a ring. Transforming one-off demand creation tactics into thematic, multi-touch campaigns that double as powerful lead generation tools, is just one of the many marketing tricks we have up our sleeves.

Automated Marketing at its Best

Automated marketing technology has truly burst onto the marketing scene and is significantly changing the way that we behave as marketers. These new technologies can drive the way you create your marketing plans, who you hire to staff your marketing teams, and the methodologies, volume, targeting, and strategies that you’re able to implement. If you’re unfamiliar with this idea of automated marketing technology, check out Eloqua, Vtrenz (now Silverpop), Marketo, or Manticore to name a few, to give yourself a quick understanding of what is out there from an automation perspective.

The opportunities that automation lends to a marketer are real and have proven
to be effective for many of the companies who have embraced them. However,
one mistake that many early-adopters admit to is the compulsion to rely so heavily on the technology tool that the human, strategic, and creative element is ignored. A trusted agency partner can help you significantly during the pre- and post-implementation phases of an automated marketing platform.

Here are ways that they can help you to fully leverage your marketing automation investment:

1. CREATIVE: You’re going to need a library of creative concepts and offers. Once you hand over the reins to whoever is in charge of launching your campaigns, you’ve got to be 100% confident that they have top-quality campaigns to choose from. And know that each one is on-brand and following direct marketing best practices. With some careful strategic planning, an agency can help you to create a library of campaigns, both content and creative, which can be customized or tweaked by audience, timing, etc. These could be template style campaigns that can be customized by audience or they could be specific creative for a specific initiative. You’ll also need a breadth of offers to strategically assign to each campaign that is useable across your target audience base. And, naturally, they should be customized for both vertical and horizontal targeting requirements.
2. STRATEGY: Often the evaluation of multiple vendors, negotiation, and implementation is incredibly time-consuming. You have all hands on deck working to integrate data, implement, and make this automation tool go. But what about your plan—did someone say strategy!!? Look to your agency partner to help map out how you’ll actually implement campaigns and who has the highest propensity to respond to them. An agency can help you to plan and forecast your touch strategy, define your audience, develop testing strategies, and analyze your results. Lean on your agency partner for strategic guidance while your resources are buried in implementation.
3. ANALYSIS: In marketing what you don’t know can hurt you so there’s nothing more valuable than knowing how to analyze and act on data. An experienced agency can help you review your data, report it to your peers, utilize metrics to justify your budget, and most importantly, analyze data to drive future marketing plans. For long-time direct marketers, data is in their blood.

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Now more than ever, you need to make sure that you’re maximizing the implementation of an automated marketing technology system so you can fully leverage the potential of your purchase. Feel free to lean on Yates Advertising as your strategic, creative, and data-savvy partner to help you do just that.

7 Proven Strategies for Landing Page Optimization

Everywhere we turn, the theme is the same, “do more with what you already have.” We hear it on all sides, from grocery shopping to business practice. So from a marketing perspective, what simple steps can you take to do things better? One key optimization comes to mind and that’s the improvement and analysis of your landing pages.

It’s proven that improving your landing page increases your conversions. Here are our 7 proven strategies for landing page optimization.

1. Keep your promises. The most important objective of your landing page is to make good on whatever you promised that brought the prospect there in the first place. Landing pages that utilize bait-and-switch tactics fail every time. Whatever compelled your prospect to the page whether it was a keyword, a content offer, an email promotion, or anything else is exactly what the user should find when they click through. If you told them to click here to receive a white paper, the landing page better focus on how they get their white paper.
2. Creative-wise, less is more.
   • Use similar elements wherever possible to the source of the landing page (email, direct mail, etc). Similar text and imagery all contribute to that feeling of being in the right place.
   • Use your graphics sparingly and only if they’re relevant to the offer.
   • White space is good.
   • Make your whole landing page easy to scan. Prospects don’t read landing pages; they scan them. Make their eyes land on what you want them to do (most likely provide you with information in exchange for your offer). Use bullets and a large font for easy readability.
   • Lose any extra navigation that will distract from your primary message.
3. Offer, offer, offer. I can’t state this enough. Landing page content has to be about the offer so double-check that the short and sweet copy that we talked about above focuses solely on the benefits of the offer. Be concise and stay focused. Not a word should be wasted on anything other than getting the visitor to act. This is not the real estate to go into great detail about what your company does.
4. Information collection. The main objective of most landing pages is either (a) to prompt a direct purchase, typical in b-c, or (b) gather more information about a prospect in order to move them through the buying cycle (typical in b-b). Here are a few tips for improving your landing page’s information collection strategy:
   • Keep it short and make sure you need to know each data point. Every piece of information you ask for reduces the likelihood that the prospect will continue, so collect as little information as you really need to route the lead and re-market to them. You can always collect more information during your nurturing process.
   • Don’t ask anything too personal (such as budget) especially if this is the prospect’s first engagement with you.
   • Consider multi-part forms where the participant can receive the offer after an initial set of questions or could voluntarily continue on to a more detailed set of questions.
   • Don’t ask them to re-type in anything you already know. Utilize pre-population tools wherever you can.
5. Collect information first; then, fulfill the offer. We’ve all seen “Mickey Mouse” data. By providing the offer via email after they’ve filled out the form, you’ll ensure that you receive at the very least, a valid email address.
6. Mind your manners. Say please. But more importantly, say thank you. Use your thank you page as a vehicle to offer prospects yet one more glimpse into the appreciation that you bestow on your customers. Also, use your thank you page to continue the engagement. Offer them something else (and in exchange, collect a bit more information). Good thank-you offers include blogs, surveys, or additional white papers.
7. Testing will give you insightful data on what’s working. Gone are the days of subjective debate; the numbers will help to guide your strategy. The most valuable things to test are the headline, graphics, the submit button, offer specifics, and form length.

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Like any campaign component, landing pages often need, to put it simply, a fresh eye on them. It’s easy to become complacent and put together pages that look and perform just as they always have. But again, during these times, we want to help you do everything about your marketing efforts better, more efficiently, and ultimately more profitably, starting with landing page optimization. Contact Yates Advertising anytime for a strategic landing page assessment.

Webinars: What To Look For

Webinars can be a successful, cost-effective tool for moving prospects along in the buying cycle beyond mere leads and into the land of real contenders. But the content of the webinar, the way that you hone in on your target audience, and the way you adhere to your brand, all affect prospect’s experience and will impact the quality of leads you pass off to sales. So, as you begin your next webinar plan, here are some best practices to make you more efficient and successful.

1. Content is king. It’s never a good idea to do a webinar on content that is not your specialty. If you’re focusing on a vertical, do your homework and get subject-matter-expertise that is relevant and trusted. Nothing spoils a great lead in the pipeline like the nagging feeling that prospects get when you don’t really know what you’re talking about.
2. Sell softly and carry a big stick. Any webinar that is too pushy for your product or doesn’t offer additional value outside of being an electronic pitch, is a turn-off. And a waste of your prospects’ time. Clearly we develop webinars to engage with prospects and ultimately to carry them through the sales funnel. They know that too. But mind your manners and don’t be overt about it. They’re agreeing to spend time (1 hour, typically) with you and they expect to be treated like a guest, not a piece of your pipeline.
3. Review your target audience again and again. And then one more time. It’s absolutely critical that you understand WHO you are inviting to your webinar, and more importantly, who is accepting your invitation. Take the time to research (prior to finalizing your content presentation) what participants might already know. Nothing stalls a webinars’ success like talking down to your participants (think of a webinar for nuclear physicists where we explain the components of an atom—not good). The solution here is in the research: visit the blogs that your participants visit, talk to your sales counterpart about this audience, create casual focus groups, implement an online survey. But, make sure you know them and know what is important to them.
4. Test your technology. Test everything at least twice. Test the web presentation, the audio, the Q&A functions, etc. Testing should occur 1 week prior to launch as well as that same day if you’re doing a live webcast. You’ll feel better knowing that you’ve done due diligence and I guarantee you’ll save yourself stress and mistakes. Don’t forget to test the dial-in to make sure the number is working for participants and call in at least 10 minutes prior to start-time so that someone is on the line for any early birds.
5. Tell them what you’re going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you told them. Create a clear, succinct agenda and be very clear about when you’re taking questions and the format for Q&A.
6. Send slides and a recorded version of your webcast to participants within 24 hours, and tell them during the webinar you will do this. Participants will expect access to this information anyway. Following up quickly helps motivate people towards their next stage in the buying cycle while your webinar is still top-of-mind.

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Of course there are more tips, tricks, and strategies for best-in-class webinars. And of course, Yates would love to help. But these 6 tips for an effective webinar should give you a great start and get those wheels turning as to how to implement this effective and informative offer into your strategy.

Top 4 Priorities for Marketers Right Now

Everywhere we look, there are ideas, lists, and tips on how to improve marketing and business performance during these tough economic times. Well, after many lengthy conversations with clients on this very topic, I’ve decided to put in my two-cents. Below are my thoughts on the top 4 priorities for marketers right now.

1. Improve.
   Process, messaging, and anything else that needs fixing. Think of it as spring-cleaning. There’s no time like the present to grease that squeaky wheel in your marketing process. Or sit down with your team and take a hard look at your messaging. Every organization has their share of archaic templates, company-centric (vs customer-centric) messaging, or targeting documents that basically choose “living and breathing” as their target attributes. And every marketer knows what it’s like to be too buried in marketing programs to analyze and correct these problems.

   If your marketing flurry has slowed down a bit, know that it is only a matter of time before you’re once again, buried in your work and “too busy” to focus on general improvement. Use this time wisely to scrutinize the efficiencies and quality of your scheduling, strategy documents, targeting, tracking, reporting, etc.

2. Communicate.
   One great advantage on the agency-side is the birds’-eye view into some of our large organization clients. We often work with multiple groups under one organization and hear the unique results, challenges, and goals that different teams can have, albeit under the same roof.

   The learning we’ve gleaned is this. Many times, the answers you seek to your marketing challenges are in your own backyard. For example, if your marketing responsibilities include email, direct mail, and direct response advertising, and your colleague is responsible for social media, online, and search-engine marketing, it’s about time you two had lunch.

   So often, we busy ourselves in what we need to accomplish and we forget that our colleagues may be facing similar challenges or searching for similar answers.

   The art of communication and collaboration across a marketing organization (and equally important, into sales) is one that can’t be stressed enough. So no matter how big or small your marketing group is, set aside some time to share your insights. You’ll reap the rewards of this open communication.

3. Automate.
   There’s no denying that marketing automation is making a big splash on the marketing scene. Marketing automation is going to be a critical factor in the development of all of our processes, skills, and performance. And yes, you should be doing your homework (if you haven’t already) on the number of great vendors out there that currently serve the automation space.

   However, don’t let daydreams of easy street marketing automation fool you. As an automated tool, it is simply that — automated. It’s not a thinking human being, much less a savvy marketer. And no matter how sophisticated it is, it won’t develop strategy, or messaging or creative, for you.

   So, you are wise to invest in the right tools. But if you find yourself immersed in learning the technology, or wrapped up with the possibilities of what this automation software, “could” do for you, don’t forget to rely on your agency partners to help you to develop the creative, messaging, offers, and strategy to maximize your performance.

4. Partner.
   This is not a shameless plug for you to call us (although we’d love for you to). Rather, it’s just a reminder of what we all know: collaborating with experts always leads to a better end result. During these tough times, don’t be afraid to lean on the partners and agencies who you know have the experience to make your marketing efforts a success.
   After 20 years in business, we’ve seen an economic downturn (or two) and quite honestly, those have been some of our most successful years. Historically, these are the times that clients turn to us for expertise, strategy, and as always, professional guidance on how to maximize their marketing-spend.

   Many marketers may choose to “wait and see.” Unfortunately that tactic is leading to the screeching halt of many lead development initiatives that ultimately contribute to revenue. Reach out to the partners you trust and get your marketing revenue contribution underway for 2009.

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So there are your 4 top priorities (for today anyway) as a marketer. Clearly Yates Advertising wants to help you make each of those action items attainable and successful. Contact us today to discuss improving your marketing impact through these 4 strategies.

Offers that Work. Just Know When to Use Them

What’s more important than a strong offer? Aside from great targeting, almost nothing beats a great offer as a campaign performance indicator.

But so often, what we see from our birds-eye view, is a great strategy, great product, great target audience, a great mix of mediums, and then BAM! No offer. Or just as frustrating, an offer that is an after-thought. And let’s face it, gone are the days of the unrelated offers. Budgets are too tight to risk flooding your sales team with unqualified prospects who are only calling you back because they want a golf club.

Your offer is crucial to the success of the campaign. There is a delicate balance in generating quality responses from your campaign AND making sure your offer aligns with where the recipient is in the buying cycle. Particularly for complex solutions (in b-b, especially) or high-price products (in b-c), the offer’s job is to guide the prospect through the buying cycle and align with their level of interest and commitment.

Early on in the buying cycle when responders are likely just researching your general product/industry landscape, offers should be educational and low-commitment. This is not the time to ask them to attend an all-day event. The early education phase should not take up too much of their time, not require too much information from them, and not cost them anything. Offers that work well in this phase are: short, soft-sell whitepapers, prescriptive data sheets (Top 5 Reasons to do XYZ), short podcasts, or other informative content that’s not going to require too much of their time.

Once you’ve engaged with them in the education phase, you can start to increase their interest with more informative and specific offers. Simultaneously, you can gather more information about them and ask them to spend a bit more time with you. Offers that work well in this phase are: webinars, short round-tables, and more detailed whitepapers.

Finally, when you know that your responder is educated and clearly interested in your solution, and is considering your product (among others) as a contender for a needed solution, you can up the ante. This is when your offer can be more aggressive and speak to the differentiating factors of your product. You can also be more personal with your prospect and collect information specific to the prospect’s challenges that your solution can solve. Great offers in this space include: free consultations, assessment surveys, pricing discounts, or appointment times with a specialist.

Ultimately, the way you deliver an offer is similar to the way we get to know people everyday. You don’t start by asking a stranger off the street to attend your next family barbeque. You get to know people in your community, often at their pace or comfort level. As your friendship builds, so does your time spent together. And if there is a match, you continue spending more and more time together. Offers are the same. Start slow, get to know each other, don’t ask too much time or energy of your responder, and build the relationship along the way.

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Yates Advertising is experienced with pairing the perfect offer (or series of offers) to your campaign objectives. Contact us today to discuss how we can help you strategically plan, create, and implement the offers that will have the highest impact on your ROI.

To Blog or Not to Blog. That is no longer a question

With the New Year came many resolutions, some I’ve already surrendered (early morning workouts are tough) and some are off to a great start. One resolution was to keep in touch with the many talented, creative, and intelligent marketing minds that I’ve met after 30 years in this business. What a better way to stay in touch than by blog?

Not only is this an exciting medium for posting up-to-the-minute marketing insights, but it allows all of us marketing professionals, a forum to exchange, share, learn, and communicate our way to better marketing performance.

Clients, both past and present, have been checking in lately as everyone brainstorms ideas on the same theme:

1. How can we use our precious marketing dollars as effectively as possible?
2. How can we show our measurable contribution and value to the bottom line?
3. How can we embrace new mediums and technology to be better at what we do?

So with those questions in mind, I set out into the blogosphere. Of course I’m fascinated by blogs (and other social media) and their glamorous, new role as the “popular kid on the marketing block”. But more importantly, I’m excited as always, to help my clients and future clients find the information and insight they need to be better marketers.

If my blog entries help you to do your job better, smarter, or more effectively, then this blog is a success. Enjoy and let me know what you think.
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As always, you can depend on Yates Advertising: your partner in direct marketing strategy, implementation, and, most importantly, results. Contact us for more information or a free consultation on how to make your marketing efforts more strategic and have a higher impact on revenue.