Conversion rate-optimization-ebook

Convert!

Optimizing Website and Landing Page Conversions for Lead Generation, as

told by a Fictional Sales Team

Paul Mosenson Founder, President of NuSpark Marketing

May 2012

Introduction

Paul Mosenson Founder, President NuSpark Marketing

Hello, You’re reading this ebook because your firm has a need to increase conversions on your website and marketing landing pages. Because the results of conversion optimization directly affects the performance of the sales department, this ebook introduces key concepts as explained by a fictional sales team. I combine useful approaches to increase and measure conversions, with fun narratives by the “sales” folks. I hope you enjoy this approach, and understand how marketing and sales need to be on the same team to optimize lead and revenue generation. Paul

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Topics Covered

1. Introduction to Conversion Rate Optimization

2. Planning a Persuasive Website

3. Landing Page Optimization; Best Practices

4. Content That Converts

5. The Role of Lead Nurturing

6. Testing Landing Pages for Conversion

7. ReTargeting; Bringing Back Visitors

8. Measuring Conversions

9. Pipeline Optimization

3 NuSpark Marketing




Dear Marketing Department, I need your assistance….our sales department requests more of your help; we can’t just rely on our own sales-generated leads. Your inbound and outbound marketing efforts are increasingly crucial to our revenue growth and our individual earnings potential. I know your team have been generating traffic to our website and landing pages, but we need more and better leads into our pipeline. So please help us identify and convert. We need conversions! Best, Oliver, VP, Sales P.S. Our sales team has been doing some research on conversion optimization- hope you don’t mind- but we are presenting some findings!

4 NuSpark Marketing




Pre-Conversion Overview

Pre-Conversion

• An attraction message

• A click on a promotion or a direct search inquiry

• Read a blog, article, website, landing page

• Convinced to learn more

• Trade content, demo, or trial for email address

• Initial conversion captured

Steps to a Conversion

5 NuSpark Marketing




The Conversion Funnel Continued

SiriusDecisions Demand Waterfall Once the Email is Captured

• Marketing Qualifies via Marketing Automation and Lead Scoring

• Teleprospecting Qualifies if no Automation exists

• Sales Qualifies to Determine Opportunities

• Sales Process begins until Resolution

6 NuSpark Marketing




CRO

• Do you know what CRO is? Conversion Rate Optimization. It’s the practice of fine tuning a website or landing page to increase leads and reducing bounce rate. I wonder if Marketing has site performance goals set and are testing/optimizing for conversions as we speak…they should be.

Ted, Account Manager.

7 NuSpark Marketing

Getting Started with CRO

Your Website

• Defining Your Website’s Purpose & Your Value Proposition

• Reviewing Your Website’s Conversion Goals, or Prospect Desired Actions

• Navigation Optimization: Is it Easy for Users to Find Those Conversion Pages (ones with web forms)?

• Is Your Messaging Persuasive and Convincing?

Your PPC/Email Landing Page

• Message Alignment: Is the content/offer aligned with the targeted marketing campaign?

• Web Form Optimization

• Call-to-Action Optimization

• Look and Feel/ Visual Attributes

• Testing Plan

8 NuSpark Marketing




The Principles of Website CRO

• Design/Layout: Our site needs to grab our prospects’ attention, get them interested in our solutions, and then get them to take action. They need to know clearly why they should choose us!

• Attention: We need a compelling headline on our home page that includes a key phrase that answer’s our target

audience’s problems. We need to pique a potential customer’s interest. • Message: Our prospects are busy. Our site only has a few seconds to communicate our benefits, and what makes

us better than our competitors. Persuasive headlines, graphic and design quality, and our page navigation need to work together to communicate our message clearly.

• Benefits: Visitors arrive wanting to know what’s in it for them. How will we make our prospects’ business life

better? Have we explained our benefits clearly on our home page? • Call to Action: I don’t want any of our site visitors leaving without taking action. This could be to sign-up, join, call

or download. I hope our CTAs are easily seen and above the fold. • Nurturing: We need to review our nurturing and social media strategy so that prospects continue to interact with

us, read our blog, and share our content. We have long sales-cycles; need to stay out there with problem solving content.

I’m Peggy of Inside Sales; I did some research, and our company website needs this stuff- can you check Mr. Marketing?

9 NuSpark Marketing




A Plea from the Sales Guys

• We went to our Google Analytics account and saw our landing page conversion rates were 5%. If you could just work on strategies to at least double that, our cost-per-conversions would be much lower, and our Marketing ROI would increase; and that means more revenue for us!

10 NuSpark Marketing

Double Conversion Rate: One Example

Current Metrics

• 2,000 prospects

• 5% conversion

• 100 inquiries

• 20% sales qualified

• 20 qualified leads

• 20% closing rate

• 4 sales

Optimized Metrics

• 2,000 prospects

• 10% conversion

• 200 inquiries

• 20% sales qualified

• 40 qualified leads

• 20% closing rate

• 8 sales!





Another Example: A More Detailed Look

Nice Revenue growth





Website & Landing Page CRO

How Can Your Website

Capture Leads?

So If We Redo Our Website…. Hey Marketing Guys, So here’s the deal, if our website is indeed not producing leads for us, let’s consider these items: a. Talk to us sales guys about our clients. We have much to say

about the needs of our prospects, what words they use, and what their pain points are. We can help you perform those buyer persona reports. When you write the new website, be in our customers’ shoes; write for them- design the site navigation for them. Tell them a convincing story!

b. Let’s make sure we’re giving prospects ample value; and give

them an opportunity to engage with us. Blogs, downloads, registrations, social sharing, and articles so valuable to their business challenges, that we make them give us their email address in return for our great content. We want leads here!

Ted, District Account Director





Let’s Pick on EPAM (chosen out of the blue) , a provider of software and application development

•#1? What does that mean? In what? Where’s the USA? •Hmmm. Software Services. What does that mean? That’s so broad. Poor choice of keywords if you’re doing SEO.

Google Listing:





EPAM Home Page

Yike; Too busy- I see mostly self-serving content rather than a clear understanding of how EPAM solves my business problems. Software Engineers…OK got it. What makes your solutions unique? Why should I buy from you? What specific problems do you solve?





Lots of Content, but…

It’s great to have content; but a.) There’s too much for me to digest, b.) There’s too much emphasis on EPAM features rather than solving specific needs of prospects. c.) The EPAM advantage, to me, is not unique enough- sounds like many firms can say that. I’m not convinced yet. There’s a lot of business jargon here, but what does it mean to me!





EPAM’s Call-to-Action Too many options for contact; too confusing. Web Form is actually OK The Problem is, there’s no content such as white papers or webinars to view with a web form. That means you have to rely on the website visitor to be near the end of his purchase cycle to have a chance for lead capture. If he’s not ready to contact, and there’s no content to provide value to him, chances are you’ll lose the lead, or the opportunity to capture an email address for nurturing.





Joe, Regional Sales

Hello Marketing team, I don’t know how much we spent on the website and SEO, but with today’s buyer research habits, that website we have doesn’t thrill me. It’s effectiveness in generating leads for us is a big concern! I found this template from NuSpark Marketing’s Content Template eBook- maybe you guys should follow these best practices?





http://www.nusparkmarketing.com/resources/ebooks-webinars-b2b-content/



Frank, Regional Sales Director

Joe, That’s a nice checklist of ideal website elements, but let’s get a little more granular with a concept called “Persuasion Architecture.” This means that a Web site has been constructed in such a structure as to convince visitors to take the action(s) you desire (a conversion!). A website with strong persuasion architecture has the following characteristics: • Clear calls to action • Concise, easy to understand language • Navigational elements that are universally accepted and tested • Reminders throughout the prospect’s visitor session about the benefits of doing business with us. Our website visitors may not care about our sales process, but we certainly have to care about how they buy. The key to a persuasive site is to map their buying processes to our selling process. Persuasion Architecture creates an online experience that leads our site visitors to find what they want by acknowledging that these two processes –buying and selling – occur in tandem and take place on every page of a Web site. Impressed Marketing Department?





Planning a Persuasive Website

• Begin with understanding the needs of your target audience. Create personas. Understand their buying process.

• Understand that visitors are on your site for a reason, whether it be initial research, evaluation, or intent to perform a conversion. Your messaging should address all of these audiences.

• Determine the conversion goals and the steps to reach those goals. What pages to test- what are the desired actions?






• Map out the ideal navigational funnel that leads to each conversion. It’s like telling a story! Example: – Home page visit

– About Us

– Products & Services Page

– View Case Study

– Prospect fills out “more info” form

– Thank You page is then shown






• Prepare a wire frame that maps out each conversion funnel. Evaluate copy and navigational elements that follow the road to conversion. Every page should answer: – Who needs to be persuaded to take action?

– What actions do they need to take to satisfy the objective?

– How do you most effectively persuade them to take action?

• Every Click on your Site Counts; Analyze each page of the wireframe carefully. – You must look at every single action people will take on your site – first click, last click

and all the clicks in between as a measurable point of conversion in your persuasive process.

– How will you persuade? You are motivating a click and then another click. You must look to the specific content that will persuade people to make conscious decisions to click on the hyperlinks that will take them deeper into your persuasive process.





Gated Content on Websites?

To Gate

• Whether forms are filled out properly or not, you do capture data; an email address

• You’ll record less downloads than non-gated, but better quality (more serious prospects interested in your solutions)

• But prospects in initial buying/research stages will hesitate to fill out forms (as they prefer free content in their research), and thus content reach will be less than non-gated

Or Not to Gate

• Better SEO Opportunity (content pages are indexed) and backlinks

• More downloads, more content sharing, higher message reach

• But less leads, conversions, and nurturing opportunities. More reliance on paid search for lead capture

NuSpark Marketing 24

It’s me again. In B2B circles, there’s controversy over whether content on your website should have a gate (Web form) or not. I’ve made a list of the pluses and minuses. NuSpark Marketing’s recommendation is to compromise: valuable, newer content should have a gated short web form, as should late stage offers (demos, trials) but older content can be free.




Let’s Get to Landing Pages Paid Search, Social Media Email Online Display Advertising Syndicated Content PR Webinars & More Inbound Marketing/Outbound Marketing all bring traffic to a landing page- designed and written 1. to showcase relevant and quality content, and deliver that content in exchange for contact information. 2. to further persuade prospects to view demos, or attempt free trials. Then the lead enters the funnel; may the nurturing begin through the pipeline. 25 NuSpark Marketing




“We’re Talkin’ ‘bout Practice- Best Practice”





Kudos to IonInteractive

Many of the following optimization tips are drawn from various presentations from our good friends at IonInteractive, specialists in landing page optimizations and post-click conversion strategies, and a NuSpark Marketing alliance.

No need to reinvent the wheel, heh heh.





http://www.ioninteractive.com/

Before Creating Landing Pages

• Know Your Objectives: What problem are you trying to solve? What are your conversion goals?

• Know Your Audience: Understand the needs of your prospects and how your solution contributes to their questions

• Maintain brand consistency through all landing pages and ads.

• Review competitive campaigns/offers if possible. Offer something unique.





Test for Message Clarity and Usability Consider a tool like the Five Second Test (www.fivesecondtest.com) to ensure that message is clear and understood within 5 seconds.





http://www.fivesecondtest.com/

Landing Page Design Tips

• Each landing page aligns itself with a specific audience with a valuable, relevant message

• Headline: Clear, focused, align with ad copy and offer; Grab a prospect’s interest with your “hook.”

• Page Content: Further explain offer, remind audiences on benefits of your offer, use bullet points and attention-getting style/formatting. If free offer; I still need convincing.

• Images: Use images (or video) that reinforce offer benefit; images should be eye-catching, relevant, but not overpowering.

• Sharing: Include social media sharing links so the content is shared easily • Reassurance: Consider testimonials, association badges and authority

endorsements. • Above the Fold: Keep primary messaging above the bottom of the screen. • Limit Distractions: Keep message laser-focused.





Our Landing Page Optimization Checklist

Content Marketing Template eBook Available Here






Effective Landing Pages





Test & Optimize for Tablets/Mobile





Ensure Ads Align with Landing Page or Leads are Lost

Misaligned message; Low Conversions





Don’t Compromise

You should have unique landing pages for each offer, medium, audience.





Inbound Segmentation

Source: Unbounce 36 NuSpark Marketing




Web Forms

Bill, Inside Sales Manager

Hey Marketing Team, It’s Bill. Just happened to be going through some of the landing pages stored in our marketing automation system and have some thoughts for you on the web forms. Remember we do strive to capture leads, so forms are essential to us in sales. The format and design of the forms are critical to conversion rates. Some ideas for you guys: a. Keep the form fields to an absolute minimum. It’s OK to gather a little information for segmenting, but only capture the most critical, like company size and role/job title. Remember, we’ll be qualifying them. b. Make sure we’re clear on expectations- when prospects receive their download, and how it’s delivered d. Submit buttons must be easy to find, clear, and engaging. Maybe include a better action word than Submit- like Go, or Download Now! e. Progressive Profiling may help us capture data (next page)





Progressive Profiling Since we’re so interested in data capture, we like the technology of progressive profiling. Progressive profiling is the technique of capturing further data on prospects every time they engage with your content with web forms. For example, if a prospect reaches us the first time, we collect 4 fields of data. If he comes back for more content, we collect 2-3 additional pieces of field data. These “conditional” fields are easily set up within our marketing automation system. Ideal technique to combine with our lead nurturing. Definitely helps us qualify prospects and reduce conversion barriers.





Segmentation Also Qualifies Prospects

Consider audience segmentation when developing landing pages: Segmentation lowers bounce rates because of stronger message match Segmentation better matches relevant content and offers toward target audiences Segmentation data can be sent to CRMS for nurturing and follow-up





Marketing Team, Just saying..You should look into DemandBase and ReachForce. They have the technology that takes those short and incomplete web forms that happen, and matches them up with more detail on the landing page visitor/ form filler (using massive databases). The technology allows my sales team to contact these visitors with more business intelligence; and thus may contribute to increased conversions.

George, Regional Sales Director





http://www.demandbase.com/

http://www.reachforce.com/Solutions/

Call-To-Action

For lead generation, it’s not just what your offer is, but how to promote that offer and convince audiences. CTA statements should be clear, consistent, persuasive, create urgency and offer value. Examples are “Download Now” “Free Trial” “ Limited Time” Our CTA template can help you plan and test offers. Use it! If the right CTA can increase lift, we all win. Content Template eBook Available Here







The Thank You Page

• The Holy Grail of Conversion is the page that confirms an action has been completed. It’s a great environment to promote: – Additional content and conversion activity – Social Media connection links – Blog subscription and newsletter

• Additional content can be promoted via the auto responder email as well • Below is a sample autoresponder as developed by IonInteractive





Dynamic Landing Pages Marketing Team, I wonder if you’ve ever researched this before- Dynamic Landing Pages? Imagine the below: A dynamic landing page is a landing page that can be manipulated in order to create a page specific to each unique visitor. Dynamic landing pages can be changed to meet each visitor’s needs. One of the biggest advantages of dynamic landing pages is that instead of creating multiple landing pages in order to target each visitor, you can create one and use dynamic keyword insertion to specialize it for each viewer. Landing pages with dynamic content are often used in conjunction with search engine campaigns, but they can be used for any marketing effort. We only have a few seconds to win a website visitor over when they arrive at our landing page. Adjusting our landing page content to reflect each visitor can help us capture their attention.

Byron, Regional Sales Manager





Dynamic Landing Pages

Here’s a couple of examples of how landing pages can be customized: a. Keyword. Keywords can be dynamically changed in landing page

headlines or within content. If a Googler searches for “sales training”, your landing page headline would be simply “Sales Training.” If the Googler were searching for “Sales consultants,” then on your landing page, the word “training” would be replaced by the word “consultants.” How’s that for relevancy?

b. IP Address. Ideal for queries that include location terms. With dynamic landing pages, town names can be customized to the search query.

In order to take advantage of this concept, the ad URLs will have to be appended with kw={keyword} and then our landing pages will need some extra php coding. I won’t explain that now, but we can chat…





Another Method of Utilizing Dynamic Landing Pages

DemandBase can also serve unique landing page content. With the technology of tracking IDs of companies that visit a website, unique content can be served based on the industry, company, or audience type. Another strategic content approach that can influence engagement and conversion rate.





Content That Attracts and Converts

The Message is What Drives Conversions

A Few Words on SEO


Hey guys, I’m in sales, so am not an SEO expert; my only issue is generating increased conversions and leads from our digital marketing. We need to make sure our website copy is based on our prospect’s language; not our own. Prospects only care about their own needs. Conducting keyword research is more than just using a keyword tool. We need to understand specifically how our clients research services such as ours. What keywords would they use? We should also ask our clients about our website, and gather likes and dislikes. All you have to do is simply ask them! We folks in sales will gladly help you! Of course we want to be found on Google, so the right keywords are essential, and implementing them into our title tags, meta descriptions, and site content is mission-critical. A quick example- Our meta description says “Technology solutions” yet that’s not a term our prospects use when they use a search engine to find an answer to their problem- think about it. That’s all I have to say.

Bert, Account Director




Content That Attracts We’re sales guys, so we haven’t gotten involved with too much content writing; that’s your job marketing people….but I do understand the importance of content marketing and attracting/converting prospects. We may have a website, but other than our outbound sales efforts, I understand what it takes to interest our target audiences, provided you guys have a full buyer persona report, so that you understand what messages relate to each persona. So you have content that attracts attention to us, right? •That’s why we have a blog, and why we push it onto social media, so that our target audience is exposed to our thought leadership; get it? •Press releases and online video content. Right- great for SEO and Google Alerts. Showcase any news and events- and use those online distribution tools.

.

Ted, Account Director





Content That Attracts •Surveys and trend information. Great to repurpose into other content and attracting attention •Advertising Copy. Whether online or offline, ad content can still attract website visitors; a good call-to-action is essential. •Webinars. Interesting and problem-solving webinars detailing insightful trends and product demos are engaging, and can attract leads quickly. •Blog Commenting; Forum discussions. Showcasing thought leadership in discussions can also bring relevant traffic, and is great for establishing credibility. •Infographics. It took me awhile to understand these, but they are appealing!

Hey Dennis, what do you have to share?





Content That Converts Thanks Ted. So marketing team, we also assume you’ve done a whole content mapping plan, so that the content you guys produce is targeted to the personas throughout their own buying cycles. Right? If you need help, I know a lead generation firm that can help….. Anyway, we need real good content that contributes to lead conversion. That’s the idea of landing pages- promote content and offers, in exchange for email addresses. I made a list of ideas: •White papers. Love it. Write it well, and provide educational and informative info, and let’s get them out there. White papers are ideal when targeting prospects in research mode. They need to focus on problem-solving. Need to capture names! •Case Studies. Further in the funnel, but these provide reassurance to our prospects that we know what to do to solve a problem.

Dennis, Account Manager





Content That Converts •Videos and demonstrations. Video is powerful. We can use videos for testimonials, and show it right before the web form decision is made. If they contribute to conversions- do it! Really good video demos and educational footage can also get folks to fill out those forms. We can even give them a preview for free. •Webinars. Sure- a great lead generator if the message is on target and communicated properly to our prospects. Like white papers, webinars focus on a problem a prospect has, and what the solutions are. We can advertise them, post them, or use them in nurturing as well. •Demos and Free Trials. These offers are ideal for later phases in a buying cycle. If prospects have any reservation on our solutions, let’s limit the risk, and offer these promotions. Great CTA for pay-per-click ads too. •eBooks. Hello! ‘nuff said.





Content Checklists





Testing

Optimizing Landing Page Performance

Testing Landing Pages Hi Marketing People. I’m another one of those lovely salespeople who rely on your inbound marketing and demand generation tactics to get more leads into the funnel. I know you’re testing your paid search, advertising, and social media tactics, RIGHT? Since we’re discussing conversion here, I would expect you’re testing landing pages as well. If not, well, I’ll offer a primer! You know why you need to test: a. Look for ways to improve our conversion rates! b. Test content, offers, etc and perhaps find new audiences c. Confirm our messages resonate with the audiences targeted with

your media campaigns.

First just make sure we have goals and benchmarks in place. Look at the Google Analytics and study where we are, and where we wish to be. The folks at NuSpark Marketing believe that the results of a landing page conversion test should be double the existing conversion rate. That’s a nice goal!

Meg, Account Manager





A/B Tests





Multivariate Tests





Testing Approach

• Utilize a testing tool, i.e. Google Website Optimizer

• Choose a campaign to test; one with high acquisition costs or low conversion rates

• Create an experiment with hypothesis

• Build and launch the test; brainstorm testing options

• Run tests long enough to judge a clear winner

• Analyze results; make recommendations; roll-out the winner

• Test regularly





What Can We Test

• Headlines • Calls-to-Action • Color Scheme • Body copy- content/ font/

size • Layout • Fields in form • Use of images • Message Match- Ads to

Landing Page Offers • Audience segments





Example: Headline Tests

• Promote Benefit – Lower Your Cost-Per-Conversion 33%

• Offer Focus – Free Conversion Optimization Consultation

• Question or Tease – Need to Lower Your Cost-Per-Conversion?

• Direct Approach – Conversion Optimization Experts

• Numbers/Checklist – 5 Ways to Increase Conversion Rates





Examples: Other Tests

• CTA Wordings – Free Trial, Get Quote, Download Your Paper Now, Get

Started, Sign Up, Start Your Trial Now

• Features/Benefits – Test key benefits- between 3 and 5 points, see which

“hot buttons” drive conversions

• Pricing/Offers – Webinar versus ebook, Limited Time versus One

Month Free, Show Pricing versus hidden pricing, White Paper versus Blog Post links





Getting Started: Google Website Optimizer

Multivariate Experiment? A/B Experiment?





Setting Up the A/B Experiment

• Have ready the URL of your original landing page, the URL variations of the original, and your conversion page URL

• Add Javascript to each page so that Google can track them

• Upload the test pages; Google validates them

• Ready to begin





Setting up the Multivariate Experiment

• Choose the web page you wish to test • Determine which elements of the page you wish

to test (headlines, image, CTA, etc) • Add Javascript code to the page’s source code • Add conversion code to the conversion page • Upload revised test pages • Validate with Google • Create Code variations for each page section of

the test • Review and begin experiment





Measure Your Experiments

Once the experiment is launched, Google’s Website Optimizer will serve the original page and over time, switch it out with page/section variations included in the experiment. During the testing phase, Website Optimizer will display a report showing the progress of the experiment and the number of conversions each page variation has achieved. It will also attempt to estimate the winning page combination based on the number of conversions each page variation achieves.

Outcome: Optimize Conversion Rate- and More Leads & Sales





Another Experiment, courtesy of LiveBall from IonInteractive

The Unbounce Dashboard





Cool Conversion Tools We Like (other than Google’s Website Optimizer)





LiveBall from IonInteractive

• LiveBall is an enterprise-class tool that enables marketers to take control of their landing pages, microsites and conversion paths. Improve your post-click pages, reduce the resources needed to launch high-performance user experiences, and increase your marketing ROI.

UnBounce • Unbounce is a self-serve hosted service that provides marketers doing paid search,

banner ads, email or social media marketing, the easiest way to create, publish & test promotion specific landing pages without the need for IT or developers.





http://www.ioninteractive.com/liveball-marketing-software/

http://unbounce.com/what-is-unbounce/overview/

Visual Website Optimizer

• Visual Website Optimizer is an easy-to-use A/B testing tool, as well as a flexible multivariate testing software.

Optimizely • Simple, fast, and powerful. Optimizely is a dramatically easier way for you to improve your website through A/B testing. Absolutely no coding required. A one-time copy-and-paste is all you need to run tests.





http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/

https://www.optimizely.com/

ClickTale

• ClickTale tracks every mouse move, click and scroll, creating playable videos of customers’ entire browsing sessions as well as visual heatmaps and behavioral reports that complement traditional web analytics.

Crazy Egg • With 3 types of heatmaps, Crazy Egg provides visualization for every click that your

visitors make.





http://www.clicktale.com/default_b

http://www.crazyegg.com/home3

Consider Chat Depending on your commitment to having people standing by, adding a chat option can increase website engagement and persuade prospects to convert. Two popular solutions are below.





Consider Call Tracking

With call tracking and Google Analytics integration, we can measure phone calls by media source and landing page, and paint a better picture of conversions when more than web form conversion options exist. Below are popular vendors we have used.





Retargeting or Remarketing

Bring Those Visitors Back; Convert Them Next Time!


Retargeting

One final topic. We’ve been focusing on getting more website and landing page visitors to become leads. Of those who do not convert, there’s an additional opportunity to get them back, and that’s called retargeting. There’s two kinds of retargeting: a. Site retargeting. Prospects who visit our website/landing

page but do not convert. We can target those people on a vast amount of websites with a display ad message. We can give them an offer with an incentive to come back and convert.

b. Search retargeting. This technology targets audiences who search for appropriate keywords, and targets those audiences with display ads. Prospects do not have to visit our site for this option. It’s based on keyword. I’ll explain in a bit…

Ed, Inside Sales





How Site Retargeting Works

Place tracking pixels on key pages and “Thank You” page for each landing page campaign or website Develop banner ads and new landing page, designed to bring back earlier visitors with a new message Measure campaign results and conversion lift





Examples of Retargeting Message Strategies for B2B

• Extend messages of nurturing emails. – Called email retargeting, serve banner ads to

audiences who opened and clicked an email link, but did not convert.

• Content Marketing. – Promote white papers, webinars, blog posts to

audiences who have visited your websites/landing pages

• Upsell/Cross-Sell. – Promote complementary offers to those who have

requested quotes, downloaded content, or purchased.





Vendors are DSPs (Demand Side Platforms)

Unlike Retargeting with Google Display Network, DSPs work with many more ad networks and exchanges; reaching almost 100% of the Internet sites that offer ads. Pricing is negotiated CPM, but optimized based on CPL or CPA





Site Retargeting Dashboard

We’re tracking Click-thru conversions as well as view-through conversions. A view-through conversion is an exposure to an ad that later led to a conversion via another channel.





How Search Retargeting Works

Search Terms are saved either as cookies or in ID files (depending on platform) Ads are shown based on your targeted keyword on product research sites. Ads are clicked to your landing pages.






Search Retargeting examples and how it works, using platform DSP Magnetic




Search Retargeting Strategy


Serve different creatives depending on keyword selection




OK We Have a Name and Email- Now What?

A Quick Review of Lead Nurturing

Lead Qualification

Teleprospecting Marketing Automation

Qualify Prospects: B: Budget (Exist?) A: Authority (Role in decision) N: Need (Confirm problem) T: Timing (Turnaround time)

Landing Page Building Lead Scoring Email Marketing/Lead Nurturing Closed Loop Revenue Analysis CRM Integration





The Lead Nurturing Process

Deliver relevant content to prospects

Increased content engagement and lead score turns prospects into sales-ready opportunities

Designed to move the recipient forward in the sales process

Lead nurturing is the process of building relationships with qualified prospects regardless of their timing to buy, with the

goal of earning their business when they are ready to purchase





First Step Lead Nurturing: Content Mapping





Content Mapping Matrix

We work with you to develop a content matrix, so that we have a guide to content strategy throughout the funnel. We’ll develop your personas, analyze your current assets, and map topics for each buying stage. The matrix helps us determine which content we want to promote on conversion landing pages, and which content to promote within nurturing emails.





Aligning Message to Buying Phase

A nice matrix from Harte Hanks on message alignment by buying phase; similar to the NuSpark Marketing Content Mapping template





Second Step: Develop Goals

• Each Lead Nurturing or Drip Campaign Should Have a Goal:

– Move Top of the Funnel Leads to Mid-Funnel

– Move Mid-Funnel leads to Bottom Funnel (Closer to sales-ready)

– Reactivate Old Leads; Re-enter the Funnel





Third Step: Prepare Emails

• Subject Line: Provide Compelling Offer and Reason Why Email Should Be Opened

• Email Headline: Introduce the Offer; Provide a Reason for Readers to Engage

• Email Body Copy: Describe Offer (less than 200 words ideal) and clear Call-To-Action (link to landing page)

• Tracking URL for Each Link: For Analytics and Measurement





Fourth Step: Measure & Optimize

• Email Metrics

– Open Rate

– Click-Through Rate

– Landing Page Conversion Rate

– Email Unsubscribe Rate

• Optimize: Content, Offer, Subject Line, Email Deployment Timing. Update for Future Tactics





Content That Nurtures Nobody here in sales likes to wait so long for the sales process to run its course. We have CRMS to stay up to date with; proposals to write, presentations to make, and our own prospecting and networking. But we’d rather not deal with BAD leads. That’s why we have marketing automation, and the ability to promote content to those leads that are accepted, but need more messaging in order to keep them in the funnel until they are indeed ready to engage with us. This is lead nurturing. Here’s my list of lead nurturing content that I hope we’re doing folks. •Email newsletters. Keeps our news, events, blog posts, and more gathered in an attractive email format. Better be mobile-friendly… •Content That Educates. Prepare assets that contribute to problem solving. Content should help our leads improve their current business challenges.

Tony, Account Manager





Content That Nurtures •Content That Promotes. Don’t be shy- test offers, send them blog subscription requests, in fact, send them relevant blog posts. Maintain engagement. Showcase content on social media too. •Content That Brings Them Back. Sometimes our prospects aren’t engaged with our emails. Let’s try to re-engage. Send them surveys or questionnaires. Send them new industry reports- something! Whatever we send, all this content needs to be tracked and tested. Mix papers, webinars, videos, blogs, etc. Just have a lead nurturing strategy planned logically; and targeted to audience segments.





Lead Nurturing Benefits

Increase in Qualified Leads

Decrease in Sales Cycle (from months to weeks)

Decrease in Cost of Sales (10% decrease)

Improved Conversion Rates of those leads (1.5 - 3.0x)

Increase in Quality of Leads Going to Sales

Increase in Transaction Size

Increase in Marketing ROI





Measuring Conversions

What Are We Measuring with Analytics

Negative Measures

• Bounce Rate: Those who visit one page and leave versus all visits

• Exit Rate: The last page a visitor sees before leaving your site versus all page visits

• Abandonment Rate: Percentage of visitors who follow a conversion path but don’t reach a final conversion

Positive Measures

• Average Time on Site/ Pages per Visit: These metrics measure site engagement

• Micro Conversions: Key events that represent engagement- Video views, PDF downloads, newsletter sign-ups, RSS subscriptions, Key page visits

• Macro Conversion: The ultimate conversion- contact or web form submission





More on Bounce Rates

Keep in mind…

• Average lead generation website bounce rate is 30-50%. Shoot for under 40%

• Landing Page and Blogs due to their nature will have high bounce rates (70-90%).

Reducing Bounce Rates

• Tech stuff- Check browser performance, page load time. Remove irrelevant splash pages

• Check segmentation- location, device, new vs. returning visitors, media source- then ID problem areas

• Run Landing page and keyword reports; fix/optimize/remove poor performers.

• Content- provide links to relevant content on the landing pages to keep audiences engaged (but don’t go overboard!)

• Relevancy- Ensure content relates to audience needs and PPC campaigns.

• Call-to-Action- Don’t let audiences guess on what to do; CTAs should be clear and navigation logical.





More on Exit Rates

Keep in mind…

• Exit Rates determine which pages in your website “persuasion architecture” are not performing up to par.

• Contact Us and Conversion pages will naturally have high exit rates. Our goal is to limit audiences from leaving other pages before performing conversions.

Reducing Exit Rates on Key Pages

• Review that page’s content. Is the content irrelevant or doesn’t contribute to your “story.”

• Is there a technical issue with the page- slow loads?

• Are there weak calls-to-actions? Are there limited opportunities for linking to other content?





Setting up Conversion Goals with Google Analytics

Steve, Inside Sales

It’s Steve of Inside Sales. I think I figured this out- so if you want me to set up conversion goals let me know! We can set up: a. A URL destination goal. To me, this is the

macro conversion, the key “thank you” page after someone submits an email address.

b. Visit Duration and Pages/Visit. Mostly for websites, rather than landing pages or microsites, these metrics measure quality traffic, because prospects are reading more pages!

c. Event. It will be interesting to see what PDFs people download, and what videos they view on our site. This is event tracking.





Conversion Goal Examples





For Lead Generation Campaigns, Analyze Your Landing Page Conversion Rates; Test and Optimize





Conversion Measurement Options Besides measuring specific landing pages, I can measure conversions all sorts of ways: By traffic sources By search engines By banner campaigns By email campaigns By social media sites By visitor location By visitor type- new versus returning By browser and OS By mobile devices I can track each conversion goal by the above- just watch me!





Assisted Conversions Didja know with Google Analytics we can track how various channels work together to contribute to conversions? With multichannel analytics and assisted conversion reports, we can judge attribution and affect of other channels that contribute to a “last interaction” conversion. Especially useful for display advertising effectiveness.





Additional Landing Page Metrics

• Digital Advertising and paid search click through rate.

– Can judge if your offer and ad content resonates with your target audience

• Visitors-to-Lead Conversion Rate.

– Those who become leads by web form submissions

• Lead-to-Sale Conversion Rate.

– Pipeline conversion metrics through the funnel

• All campaigns should be tested and optimized






One More Thing!

Improve Pipeline Conversions to the Close!

Don, Sr. VP Marketing

Thank you sales team. Your insights on CRO were spot on, and we need to do a better job. But this eBook can’t end until I give you a tool as well. It’s called Insight, and it’s a new Salesforce.com app developed by NuSpark Marketing alliance Marseli. Listen up Sales Directors, the app takes all that rough revenue data from Salesforce, and organizes it better so that you can evaluate regional, area, and sales rep pipeline performance. Insight is designed to improve visibility, analysis and management of your sales process – by giving you insight into the behaviors of your sales people and marketing generated opportunities in each stage of your process. It delivers the up-to-the-minute insight your managers need in order to coach for improved revenue generation and improve marketing’s impact on revenue. Check out these screen shots, and if interested in learning more, contact Paul Mosenson at 610-604-0639!





http://www.marseli.com/

Conversion Activity by Sales Stage





Individual Rep Analysis





Period Reporting





It’s Over!

Ernie, Sales Assistant

That’s it- lots to think about! Talk to your marketing people- in-house or outsourced, or talk to Paul Mosenson of NuSpark Marketing! Let’s increase conversions the right way! Some housekeeping: a. Go to the NuSpark website under resources, and check

out all those other ebooks- Content Marketing, Paid Search, Marketing Automation, and more- all about lead generation! That’s www.nusparkmarketing.com

b. We mention a number of third party tools and alliances. We can make a deal and act as a conduit, so if there’s a tool you’d like to use, we can resell it to you!






About NuSpark Marketing

• Digital eMarketing Firm focusing on lead generation, lead management, content marketing

• Founded in 2010; Team members average 20 years of experience

• Philadelphia based; virtual team of experts

• Provides the process, content, and consultation for firms that implement inbound marketing and demand generation





Contact Me, Paul Mosenson

• I will assess all of your lead generation programs; make strategic recommendations, and help execute what needs to get done.

– Media, Paid Search, SEO, Social Media, Content Strategy, Website Conversion Optimization, Landing Page Optimization, Lead Nurturing, Analytics

– $5,000 for a full assessment, or free if we work together longer-term. Call me for details (610) 604-0639





Questions? Need Help? • Contact Paul Mosenson of NuSpark

Marketing • [email protected] • 610-604-0639 • www.nusparkmarketing.com • @nusparkmktg

Happy to Help! That’s my Job!





mailto:[email protected]

http://www.nusparkmarketing.com/

Acknowledgements

• The following organizations provided good content contributions to my eBook

– IonInteractive

– WiderFunnel

– Kissmetrics

– Unbounce

– Hubspot

– Future Now





Business

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