Posted by Kelly Hall, Account Manager
“Optimization” has many meanings in today’s marketing world. What might come to mind first is search engine optimization — or improving your rankings in search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. And while that should be an important part of your overall marketing plan, optimization has a place in many other tactics you use to build brand awareness, attract your audience, and of course, create conversions.
To read the full article and learn more about measurable optimization tactics subscribe to 90news and view the February 2010 issue in the archives.
Atlas Copco Construction Mining Technique USA was looking for a new channel to sell pre-owned water well drill rigs. They turned to us, 90octane, a Denver-based, conversion-driven marketing agency, for help.
90octane built a custom lead generation microsite to showcase the rigs, which typically carry six-figure price tags, and crafted an associated paid search marketing campaign to drive visitors to the site.
Joanna Canton, Atlas Copco marketing communications director, is pleased with the hundreds of highly qualified leads generated. For the paid search program, “The average cost-per-lead is $28, compared with hundreds of dollars apiece for leads from trade shows and print ads,” she noted.
Because the program has resulted in high-dollar sales, Atlas Copco CMT USA already has plans to expand it.
Read the full Atlas Copco paid search story from a February issue of BtoB Magazine.
Posted by: Kristi Jackson, Marketing Coordinator
As Social media continues to grow and become an important factor within the B2B industry, companies are beginning to realize the importance of claiming their space through tools such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in order to reach their consumers. However, most companies are not utilizing these tools to their full potential.
Companies often forget the lead generating opportunities that social media tools like Facebook have to offer. One things that B2B companies should keep in mind to increase lead generation on Facebook is to be sure to have links to the company resources that they already have such as email subscriptions, newsletters, white papers, brochures, etc. on their fan page. By placing registration behind these links, companies can start generating leads from their Facebook consumers. Additionally, tracking URL’s can be placed on these links to easily measure leads generated from Facebook.
Because we know that consumers who are coming to a company’s Facebook fan page are typically already interested in the company’s offerings and are looking for more information, it is important to include content that is unique to Facebook and will give these users a reason to continue to come back. One way that this can be done is by providing a special offer to these consumers that they cannot get by going to your corporate website.
Utilizing these ideas for a B2B Facebook page will not only benefit companies by creating another channel for lead generation, but it will also continue to enhance their users experience on Facebook.
Posted by: Sean Voorhies, Project Manager
Increasing response is the goal of any lead nurturing program, but it’s easy to get locked into a campaign that isn’t flexible once it launches. Here are three quick insights to use before you go live:
Leverage Learnings from Existing Site Analytics
If you have existing site data that speaks to your user’s behavior, whether it’s product offer preferences, patterns of site navigation or usability or communication frequency, make sure those are leveraged in building out a nurturing campaign. There can be a strong correlation between how users respond to similar offerings or information on your site and how they will initially respond during a lead nurturing campaign.
Use Prospect Profiling
Identifying prospect profiles and tailoring your lead nurturing program to specific user characteristics not only gives your campaign more flexibility from the get go, but it also allows you to provide a better experience for the prospects because it meets their unique needs. An easy starting point could be an existing product user profile and a new user profile.
Consider Progressive Registration
If your offers solicit a clear difference in user desire and intent then consider using progressive registration. By beginning the registration with standard fields and then progressively asking more detailed questions as the offer involvement grows, you’re able to capture a larger amount of leads up front and qualify your prospects further down the funnel with more detailed criteria.
Posted by: Nikki Burmaster, Marketing Coordinator
While it may seem like super-targeted and high-profile ad placements are the primary drivers of online advertising today, a recent study from ad research group Dynamic Logic suggests that poor creative is a large part of what makes online ads ineffective. While placement and targeting of online ads are very important, they are the distribution system of the ad, whereas the creative is what people actually react to. This is sometimes forgotten in the online space, where real-time reporting and analytics make media extremely complex.
Keeping this in mind, what can you do to best optimize your creative? Here at 90octane we know that creative factors such as persistent branding, strong calls to action and even human faces make for better ad recall, brand awareness, and purchase intent. Here are a few more tips to help maximize the performance of your creative:
- Highlight the brand prominently throughout the ad: Omnipresent logos have the highest brand and online ad awareness
- Make each second count: The ad should support the message at all times, whether it’s brand awareness or a call to action
- “Reveal” ads don’t work: Get right to the point. Users are unlikely to wait around and watch an ad in its entirety
- Stay Simple: Try and avoid using more than two messages per execution
Posted by: John Batchelder, Conversion-Driven Media Specialist
Negotiating value added (VA) media with publishers involves persistent negotiation, but does not mean your publisher should be taking a loss on your campaign or that the client should be getting valueless value added placements. The VA media negotiation starts with a positive agency/publisher relationship as well as a solid media plan, and ends with a combined effort by you and your publisher to boost the value of an already strong proposal.
Just like any relationship, you’ll get from a publisher relationship what you put in. Being pushy or dismissive may get you the value added media you want initially, but will not get your campaigns trafficked in time, your phone calls returned, or help you get out of a pinch when you need your publisher’s help. Start by being honest about the client’s expectations, then work with your publisher to build the best proposal possible with paid media. After you have received a proposal from your publisher, ask if the paid placements provided are absolutely the best opportunities for client’s objective. Asking this question may prevent your value added media from consistently out-performing your paid placements.
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Posted by: Kayla Wagner, Account Manager
A recent JupiterResearch/ClickZ survey of email marketers showed that 81% believed that their most effective tool for acquiring emails, both in quantity and quality, was their own website. Given this statistic, looking at how you drive people to your website in order to build those lists is pretty important. Whatever the channel, a prospect that sees your ad should have a clear call to action to receive more communications from you.
Further, be sure that once a prospect clicks from your ad, that there is an easy and clear path to sign up for your brand’s communications that is simple enough to make them want to fill out a basic form and submit their email. Then, once you have that information, be sure to speak to your audience differently based on who they are. You can send a welcome email as soon as a person opts-in to start the conversation, and follow that with triggered messaging based on a prospect’s actions on your website.
Alternatively, if the user is a customer or client, you would want to send them a different message than that of your new prospect. The use of automated marketing tools can help you make this an easy process overtime.
If you spend the upfront time and strategic thought aligning your advertising – be it search, social, media or offline – with your approach to building your prospect list versus that of your current customer relationship program, you’re sure to see positive results. This isn’t an overnight trick, it will take time and investment, but it will certainly pay-off in the end.
Posted by: Chelsea Maxwell, Marketing Coordinator
Testing and optimizing your landing page is a critical part of creating a successful online marketing presence. However, even when you do not have time to test your landing pages you can still easily eliminate common mistakes and increase your conversion rates. The following approaches to raise conversions will work across a variety of industries:
- Keep it Simple. Your landing page should be focused on the desired conversion. Make the action you want the consumer to take clear. Let them know you are looking to generate a sale, download or email sign-up. Remove additional clutter on the page by limiting other clickable links and choices.
- Trim the Fat. Studies have shown that less text on a webpage leads to higher conversion rates. Consider reducing your content down to simple headlines, bulleted lists and prominent buttons.
- Deliver Value. Visitors come to your site with an expectation before they ever landed on your page. Ensure that the message delivering traffic to your site matches the content of your landing page. read more »
Posted by: Lauren Klostermann, Project Manager
In June Yahoo announced the launch of a pilot program for My Display Ads. My Display Ads is a way for users to create their own banner ads and is designed to help small and midsize businesses reach audiences using Yahoo and its Partner Network. The entire program is powered by AdReady, a network advertiser. Users can create ads using more than 800 display templates, basing their campaigns on either CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) or CPC (cost-per-click) pricing structures. Users are also able to track specific metrics for reporting purposes.
Yahoo’s program is based on reaching the currently under-utilized market of small business owners by making online advertising extremely accessible and inexpensive. The results of a March study by BBI (Bredin Business Information) found that SMBs are relying less on traditional marketing tactics because of the economic downtown and are moving more towards online marketing.
This move by Yahoo comes after search giant Google announced changes to its flagship advertising product, AdWords, by offering advertisers more relevant information and options.
For more information and to try out this product, visit http://yahoomydisplayads.adready.com.
Posted by: Sean Voorhies, Senior Marketing Coordinator
Conversions. Landing Pages. Landing Pages. Conversions. These two words are inextricably linked. Unlike websites or even microsites that have the breadth and depth to be many different things to different visitors, landing pages earn their rightful place on the Web, in lead generation programs, and within the marketing budget by being laser-focused and conversion-driven.
Whether the landing page houses a unique informational offer, free trial, interactive tool or some other feature, the simpler it is in highlighting the conversion action, describing benefits and moving the user’s attention from thought to action, the more effective the page will be. From button and form design to hero shots and branding, there are many “principles of simplicity” that can be applied to effective landing page design. Below we take a look at three of the simplest, and yet most overlooked, examples:
De-emphasize off-page links.
Once your traffic sources are dialed in and qualified visitors are finding and interacting with your page, the last thing you want is to emphasize a link that will take them away. Such a link usually connects to the company’s home page or a different campaign microsite. But users who prefer to visit the home page will typically seek that link out, and highlighting off-page links instead of the conversion action can confuse users who would otherwise be interested in the offer.
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